Urban farming in Cuba — 'farming from necessity,' raised by crisis

When people hear 'Cuba,' many picture cigars, classic cars, or Caribbean music. Yet in any account of the world history of urban agriculture, this island occupies a place one cannot go around. In the capital, Havana, a considerable share of the fresh vegetables consumed in the city — by one account around 90 per cent — is said to be supplied from urban farms and gardens in and around the city. Not vast farms stretching to the horizon, but vacant lots within the streets and beds walled in concrete are what actually hold up the urban table. This is a level rare in the world, and one born less of a deliberate agricultural policy than of a certain historical crisis.

That crisis was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Cuba at the time depended on the Soviet bloc for most of its trade, fuel and food. When the oil stopped coming and chemical fertiliser, pesticides and tractor parts all dried up, its petroleum-soaked modern agriculture lost its function at a stroke. Gross domestic product shrank by more than a third within a few years, and agricultural production is said to have fallen by roughly half. Amid hunger, people turned every usable space — balconies, rooftops, vacant lots, courtyards — into fields. This report follows how this 'farming from necessity' arose, and came in time to be spoken of as an agroecology without agrochemicals.

The key to understanding Cuban urban agriculture lies in the era known as the 'Special Period in Time of Peace' (Período especial en tiempos de paz). For years the Soviet Union had bought Cuban sugar at prices far above the world market and, in return, supplied oil, food and machinery. When that relationship vanished in 1991, the island suddenly had to feed itself on its own. Oil imports are said to have fallen to about a tenth of their peak, and trade to have shrunk by more than 80 per cent. Calorie intake dropped sharply, and many households struggled for their daily food.

This scarcity was the very parent of urban agriculture. With no chemical fertiliser, pesticide or fuel to buy, farming had no choice but to be rebuilt into a 'way that uses no oil.' With no fuel to haul produce from distant farms into the city, one had to grow it near where it would be eaten. Thus farming was drawn toward the city and changed its form, leaning on compost, hand labour and the power of living things. Around 1993, it is also reported, permaculture specialists from Australia were invited to help spread sustainable techniques. In the chapters that follow we look in turn at the substance of this turn — the invention of the organopónico, the steering toward agroecology, and the way institutions came to follow after it.