In steps, post-Soviet, post-Fidel Cuba is changing

By MIKE WILLIAMS

Palm Beach Post-Cox News Service

Sunday, March 30, 2008

HAVANA — America Alarcon might teach a trick or two to organic farmers in the United States who want better market share even as they reduce their carbon footprint by cutting back on fuel used to grow and ship their crops.

"Our customers buy their produce directly from our stall, which as you can see is right next to the crops," she says, standing in the midst of her impressive garden. "We are 100 percent organic, using no chemicals or artificial fertilizers. The food tastes so much better. Sometimes we even pick it on demand for the customers."
Alarcon's 2-acre operation, tucked beside a busy thoroughfare in western Havana, is part of Cuba's system of small urban gardens and mini-farms that were developed years ahead of the current "local-vore" movement gaining popularity in other parts of the world.

Concerned by global warming, U.S. and European consumers are switching to locally grown food, some counting the miles the products must be shipped before purchase, hoping to reduce greenhouse gases and support nearby farmers.

In Cuba, urban farms occupy 86,000 acres, producing about 3.4 million tons of produce annually in recent years - about 90 percent of the fresh vegetables for Havana alone.

The origins of the system date to the early 1990s, when Cuba was rocked by the loss of billions of dollars in annual subsidies after the collapse of its longtime communist patron, the Soviet Union.

In the crisis that followed - called "the Special Period" - food became scarce, along with nearly every other basic product, including fuel.

Still, despite the work of the urban farms, Cuba does not produce enough food to feed its people and last year spent $1.6 billion on food imports.

Mindful that Cuban tables are often still scarce of basic food products, Cuba's new president, Raul Castro, who took his ailing brother Fidel's place in late February, is pressing to raise farm production.

The United States is Cuba's top foreign supplier, selling about $437 million in agricultural products to the island last year.

Although the four-decade-old U.S. embargo blocks most American companies from doing business in Cuba, modifications of the law in 2000 allowed for the sale of U.S. food and medicine.

Florida farmers have taken a growing interest in the Cuban market, which is only a few hundred miles away from major ports in Riviera Beach, Tampa and Miami.

Over the past few years, Florida cattle ranchers have shipped about 1,000 head of cattle to Cuba.

But the long-simmering tensions between Castro's communist Cuba and Cuban exiles remain a factor in the politics surrounding the shipments. Cuban exile leaders believe the U.S. food shipments help prop up the repressive Cuban regime, although in recent years a growing number of lawmakers from farm states have been pressing for a wider opening for U.S. products in Cuba.

In the post-Soviet period, the Cuban government turned to the small urban farms to produce more food and get it to market faster and cheaper.

"Before the Special Period, most of the vegetables consumed in Havana came from 50 miles or more away," said Fernando Morrell Macaya, head of Havana's Association of Farmworkers and Foresters.

"We lost a high percentage of the produce during transportation," he said. "Now everything is produced near the consumers. We are direct to the table."

Incentives for farmers

The crop yields from large state-controlled farms and co-ops are often lackluster.

In a 2006 article, the Communist Party newspaper Granma criticized the farm industry as "marked by subjective management deficiencies (and) a decline in labor productivity and also in the average hours worked."

In the past year, Raul Castro has raised pay for farmworkers, sped up payments to farmers, raised the price for milk and exhorted growers to put more land into cultivation.

Urban farms have become even more important because their produce is available without the high transportation costs for crops raised in the countryside.

The urban farms are a patchwork of state-run and privately held operations. The private farmers are granted "usage permits" from the Cuban government allowing them to farm the land, typically up to 5 acres.

At a state-run 5-acre farm in the suburb of Playa in western Havana, about 30 workers toiled recently over carefully tended rows of carrots, lettuce, tomatoes and other vegetables.

"We have 24 different crops, and we are strictly organic, with no chemicals," said Pablo Frias, the farm's manager. "Our workers make about twice as much as doctors are paid in Cuba."

On another individually run spread nearby, Pedro Gonzalez, 55, has increased production about 50 percent over the past two years by using improved seeds, increased rotation and by planting every last inch of his farm.

"If I grow more, I make more," he said. "That helps the state because more is produced. And I am not keeping all the profits. I sell food at low cost to three schools and two day-care centers, supplying all the vegetables for 850 students each day."

Asked whether he fears a greater influx of U.S. farm products should tensions between the countries ease, Gonzalez was confident he could compete.

"They would have to pay their packing and shipping costs," he said, "so I know I could beat their price."