Organic fruit and vegetable growing as a national policy: the Cuban story
by Micheline Sheehy Skeffington
Background
Perhaps the first crop Cuba was famous for was sugar-cane. Along with its sister Caribbean islands, Cuba was the centre of sugar-growing through the 18th and 19th century. Sugar-cane was planted throughout the island mostly by the Spanish and the crop came to depend on up to 1m African slaves for production and harvest. The Cuban sugar industry took off in earnest following a slave revolt in Haiti in 1791 and Cuba was to become the world’s largest sugar producer in the 19th century, with the United States as its biggest market (Thomas, 2001).
By 1827, Cuba had also more than 2,000 coffee plantations, following French migrations from Haiti. These plantations also depended on slaves for production. Later, in the early 20th century, tobacco and citrus fruit became important and were also traded with the US. Cuba is the biggest island in the region and therefore developed extensive trade and interchange with its nearest and largest neighbour, the U.S. At several times U.S. presidents or high-ranking politicians attempted to acquire Cuba by purchase or invasion. By late 19th century the US was attempting to support the island’s struggle for independence from Spain. This struggle was successful in 1902 and a series of corrupt US-dependent governments were to follow in Cuba. By the 1920s many U.S. companies had heavy investments in Cuban businesses and banks, owning in addition about 2/3 of its farmland. Unemployment and repression were rife and, in 1933, Fulgencio Batista gained power by means of a coup. Later elected, his government subsequently collapsed and in 1952, he repeated his coup. The violence and repression continued and the time was ripe for a revolution. Initiated in 1953, the Cuban revolution finally succeeded in January 1959 (Thomas, 2001).
After assuming power, Fidel Castro nationalised the major companies including the mines, banks and the electricity company, all of which were largely owned by U.S. interests. Very quickly the U.S. retaliated by placing a trade embargo on Cuba, attempting to isolate the island economically. The revolutionaries, already socialist in thinking, turned to the USSR for support, thus establishing three decades of dependency on another external system, even if it enabled radical reforms to be implemented.
Also, for the first time since the arrival of the Spaniards, all farmers had a share in the production of their land. But the heavy USSR subsidy had its down side, as cash crops were still central to the agronomic economy. From 1960 to 1989 the main exports were all cash crops -sugar, coffee, tobacco and citrus fruits. The crops were intensively farmed on large farm collectives throughout the country. But these were largely for export and up until 1989, 55% of food consumed in Cuba was Soviet-subsidised imports. Even animal feed was 97% imported, largely maize and soya beans (Rosset and Benjamin 1994).
http://www.energybulletin.net/13067.html
Radishes, shallots and lettuce in canteros, some of them intercropped
National Botanic Gardens, La Habana. a) Herbs drying in Cuban sunshine. December 2003. b) young guava, mango and citrus trees in the fruit tree project
Pepe shows schoolchildren how to gather vitamin C-rich berries from bushes growing outside their Project Centre in Marianao.
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