Cuba’s Declaration of Agricultural Independence

Rick Exner

One good reason to travel to new places is to better understand the place that we come from. So when ISU offered us the chance to see Cuba’s agriculture, we couldn’t say no. In May, PFI Vice President Susan Zacharakis-Jutz, cooperator Gary Guthrie and I spent eight days with an ISU delegation touring urban gardens, farms and research centers in the region around Havana, the nation’s capital. One objective of the trip was to explore long-term collaborations and exchanges in research and extension.

Cuba is shrouded in mystery for people in the U.S. Coming in on a night flight, I was almost surprised to see lights below, let alone a modern international airport. I knew Cuba had suffered hard times since the loss of trade with the Soviet Union and because of the economic embargo imposed by the United States on the socialist Cuban government. But what we found was a country that is responding creatively to these challenges.

Imagine if the borders of Iowa were sealed from trade. That’s an exaggeration of Cuba’s condition, but it helps in thinking about the situation faced by that country. Iowa imports an overwhelming portion of the $8 billion we spend annually on food, and most of our agricultural production is sold out of the state. Because of heavy production inputs, we use almost as much energy to raise corn as we get back in the crop. Without trade, how would this state feed itself? We have tremendous productive capacity, but our agriculture is based on fuel and other inputs imported into the state and agricultural products shipped out. Both what we grow and how we grow it would have to change radically.

Cuba’s agricultural economy was centered on sugar and a few other export crops, which were grown with a high level of fertilizers, pesticides, and mechanization. Excluding sugar, however, the country was a net importer of food. That all changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union. No longer did Cuba have a source of cheap energy and agricultural inputs or a trade customer willing to buy sugar at a price greater than the open market. Beginning in 1989, Cuba’s economy entered a crisis from which it is only now beginning to recover.

In this “special period,” the country has completely redesigned its agriculture from high-input to sustainable and from export-based to community-based. Large state farms were broken up into cooperatives in order to give people financial incentives to be productive. Land in and around cities is being put into production, and Cubans now have access to food both at free market prices and in price-controlled government stores. Schools, businesses, the Cuban army, and many private citizens now maintain their own gardens and are self-supporting in vegetables. Farmers can presently earn incomes many times that of a teacher or doctor. In this way, Cuba’s government hopes to encourage more people to go into farming.

Cuba’s scientists have played an important role making the new agriculture sustainable. For example, producers can now purchase microbial seed treatments that are said to provide crops with much of their requirements for phosphorus and nitrogen. Other microbial treatments combat damping off of seedlings. These inoculants and a number of beneficial insects are produced in local facilities using fairly low-tech methods. This makes the materials readily available and builds skills in the communities. Other research facilities are carefully documenting the energy efficiency of farming systems based on different combinations of crops and livestock. Energy efficiency is more than a parlor game for Cuban agriculture, which has even revived animal traction to substitute for diesel fueled tractors.

Coming from a country which has fewer and fewer farmers and in which production is further and further removed from consumption, it was fascinating for us to see a country in which government policy is firmly in support of local food systems, sustainable agriculture, and increasing the number of people involved in farming. It is reasonable to wonder if Cuba’s agricultural revolution is simply a response to circumstances rather than a philosophical preference for local food systems and sustainable agriculture. What if fuel and other inputs became cheap in Cuba again? What if private capital investment flowed into agriculture on a large scale? What if the Cuban economy provided farmers with even more profitable opportunities outside of agriculture?