Box 1-12. Sustainable agriculture and food security in Cuba: Lessons for the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean

In 1989-1990, the collapse of trade relations between Cuba and the Soviet bloc plunged this small Caribbean nation into an economic and food crisis. Today Cuba has succeeded in overcoming that crisis and its experience illustrates that it is possible to feed a nation with a model based on small and medium producers, and ecological technology with low external inputs.

     The Cuban agricultural system was based on the conventional/ productivist model of agriculture, highly dependent on external inputs (chemical fertilizers, pesticides, oil, machinery, etc.), as well as large and inefficient state farms. With the change in the favorable terms of trade Cuba had enjoyed with the other socialist countries, there was an almost immediate 53 percent reduction in oil imports, a 50 percent reduction in imports of wheat and other cereal grains for human and animal consumption, and an 80 percent reduction in fertilizer and pesticide imports.

     Suddenly, a country with high levels of inputs in its agricultural sector was submerged in a food crisis. It is estimated that as of the early 1990s, the daily average consumption of calories and proteins of the Cuban population had fallen to levels 30 percent below those of the 1980s.

     Fortunately, for years Cuba had invested in the development of its human resources and had a highly educated population, as well as scientists and researchers who were mobilized to provide alternatives for the country's agricultural production and food security. The alternative model adopted rests on four pillars:

1. Agroecological technology and diversification instead of chemical inputs and homogenization. Among the practices successfully used are:

• Diversification of production and of the farm, by intercalated crops, associated crops, multicropping, and agroforestry.

• Biopesticides (microbial products), locally produced natural enemies, and multicropping to control pests; resistant varieties, crop rotation, and microbial antagonists to control pathogens; rotation and cover (living or dead) for weed management.

• Biofertilizers (e.g., Azotobacter, Azosprillum), increase in populations of mycorrhyzogenic fungi, use of microorganisms that make phosphorus soluble, manure, compost,

and earthworm humus, green fertilizers, natural zeolites, and minimum tillage for agroecological soil management.

• Integration of stock-raising and crop-farming for better use of the energy byproducts generated by both sectors.

• Use of draft animals to replace tractors, which use fossil fuels.

2. Fair prices for farmers. Cuban farmers increased production in response to the high prices farm products fetch. Through other programs and policies to bolster food security, the government is seeing to it that the population in general, and the urban population in particular, has access to food despite the high prices.
3. Redistribution of the land. The main redistribution of land in Cuba consisted of dividing up large state properties into smaller units. The arable area in the hands of the state dropped from more than 75 percent in 1992 to less than 33 percent in 1996. The small farmers and urban horticulturalists have been the most productive of all the Cuban producers under lowinput conditions.
4. Major emphasis on local production, including urban agriculture. The food produced locally and regionally offers greater food security, since the population does not depend on the caprices of prices in the world economy, transportation over long distances, or the good will of other countries. Production is also more energy-efficient since so much energy is no longer consumed in transportation. Finally, in Cuba, urban and peri-urban agriculture has been an important component of the strategy of supporting local food production.

Cuba's situation is very particular and it cannot be indiscriminately applied to other countries. Nonetheless, Cuba offers us a specific example of a country that was able to transform its agriculture towards a more sustainable agriculture. The most important lesson of this example is that agroecological practices, along with fair prices for producers, agrarian reform, and local production, including urban agriculture, can make a significant contribution to food security and to improving the standard of living of both urban and rural small-scale producers.