AGRICULTURE-CUBA: From Garden to Table, in the Middle of the City

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Mar 15 2000 (IPS) - Urban farming is gaining ground in Cuban cities as a major source of fresh produce, in response to food shortages arising from the crisis that has had this Caribbean island nation in its grip since the start of the 1990s.

Agricultural activities in Havana – a city of 2.2 million – now provide jobs to around 30,000 people, and tens of thousands of city residents prefer to buy the mainly organic produce they see growing near their homes.

“Just look at how fresh this lettuce and chard is!” says Consuelo Fernández, 60, holding her bag open to show a friend who is passing by the vegetable stand Fernández visits three times a week.

Over her head, among the shelves where food products are piled high, a small sign reads “from the garden to your table….organic products”, which are grown free of chemical fertilisers or pesticides, and with water certified to be unpolluted.

While waiting to be attended, customers can read another sign which explains that “the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recommends daily consumption of 300 grams of fresh produce per person to guarantee the vitamins and minerals necessary to good health.”

In the past few years, gardens have been cropping up all over the place in residential areas – on empty lots, terraces and the narrow bits of land surrounding buildings, in yards, and even in barrels or other containers. Small barnyard animals or dairy cows are even raised within city limits, for private consumption or sale at nearby farmers markets.

According to official data, the number of urban gardens nationwide climbed from 2,514 in 1997 to 7,076 in late 1999. In Havana there are 840, nearly twice the number that existed just two years ago.

But agronomists stress that there are still many empty lots in the capital, which should be taken advantage of to reduce Havana’s dependence on foodstuffs brought in from other regions.

A commission made up of provincial and municipal government officials as well as representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture is in charge of the programme for developing urban farming.

The economic crisis and resultant shortage of food items, fuel, transport and utilities, along with the heavy concentration of Cuba’s population in urban areas, have forced the government to put emphasis on less costly forms of producing and marketing food.

Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) Raúl Castro, the second-most influential official of Cuba’s socialist government, after his brother President Fidel Castro, personally urged Cubans to “consolidate and strengthen” urban agriculture throughout the country.

“There should be no land left idle on the outskirts of the cities and towns linked to adequate marketing systems that facilitate the selling of farmers’ produce to the public,” said Castro in a message published by the government monopolised press early this year.

The minister assigns strategic importance to the production of foodstuffs. “Beans are worth more than trucks,” he declared at the peak of the “special period” – the official euphemism for the recession that began in the 1990s, in the wake of the disappearance of the Soviet Union and east European socialist bloc.

The urban farming programme in Havana currently involves 23 projects using sustainable, green-friendly farming techniques to produce vegetables, rice, coffee and fruit, and raise cattle, pigs, fowl, rabbits and other livestock. Fish-farming is another aspect being developed.

There are also plans for producing organic fertiliser from compost piles.

In 1999, 2.5 million quintals (100 kgs) of grains and fruit were produced, as well as 1.5 million quintals of vegetables.

Plans for this year include the production of 3.1 million quintals of vegetables, grains and fruit and 9.1 million litres of milk.

Local authorities say the idea is to achieve a level of production – 15 kilos per square metre – that would provide enough food for each Cuban to consume 300 grams of fresh produce and 70 grams of animal protein daily.

International agencies recommend that urban or semi-urban farming be fomented by city governments, in order to improve food security and improve urban food marketing systems.

United Nations figures indicate that the world’s urban population is increasing by 60 million people a year, and that most of the inhabitants of Latin America already live in cities.

Experts predict that it will become more and more difficult to tackle the challenge of meeting the nutritional needs of urban residents, especially the poor.

Havana is one of the world’s 200 cities with a population of over one million. In 1996, 8.2 of Cuba’s 11 million people lived in urban areas.