26 October 2006 in www.kauaian.net/blog/
(SusHI Sustainability)
A closer review of the WWF’s 2006 Living Planet Report”
(earlier posted here)
reveals that Cuba is the only country in the world with sustainable
development.
The WWF’s rating includes both its own measure of “Ecological
Footprint” and the UN’s “Human Development Index”.
Countries must score well on each to qualify as sustainable, and it’s
interesting that the only one is an island.
The ecological footprint is a measure of demand on the biosphere.
Whereas the U.S. footprint represents 5.3 times our global share,
Cuba’s is actually 17% less than its share.
The HDI is an indicator of well-being. Cuba ranks 52nd (among 177
countries) on the HDI (at .817), while the U.S. ranks 10th (at .944).
Key areas where Cuba actually bests the U.S. include 50% more spending
on education and 50% less on health care, nearly three times the share
of women in politics, 10% more physicians, one-tenth the CO2 per capita,
and 1/3 the poverty rate…all with equal literacy and life expectancy.
Some might argue Cuba is sustainable because it had to be more self-reliant.
Yet, that’s the point of sustainability…especially for
an island.
SUBJECT: CUBA SUSTAINABILITY
A Green
Revolution
from
Cuba
Organic Support Group (http://www.cosg.org.uk/)
Sugar cane was
introduced to Cuba on Columbus' second voyage. By the early 19th
century sugar production had established a dominant position in
the island's economy. Large tracts of fertile land were put down
to sugar cane, divided into great estates, and the whole process
fueled by a slave economy. The pre European population had long
been decimated, along with their traditional systems of agriculture.
Although slavery was abolished in the 1880's the estates survived,
and in the 1950's, prior to the Revolution, only 1% of landowners
held over 47% of all arable and grazing land. Agrarian reform after
the Revolution nationalised the larger estates into state farms
which accounted for 75% of farmland. The remaining land was privately
owned by campesinos and other small farmers.
After the Revolution in 1958, sugar continued to play a dominant
role in the economy, and the agricultural system was run on standard
agro-industrial lines. The direction provided by Soviet technicians
ensured that the major adherence was to the industrial model of
food production, increasingly mechanised and reliant on chemical
inputs to maintain a steady, controllable, and standardised output.
With generous trading terms provided by the Soviet bloc, Cuba was
able to sell its sugar at five times the world price and in return
buy cheap petroleum and agrochemicals. Ten million tons of sugar
was the dream from the 60's through 70's. Orchards and mixed use
land was lost to the singular demands of the sugar harvest. The
island became dependent on imports for a high percentage of its
staple foods. 100% of its wheat, 50% of its rice, and up to 90%
of its beans: as much as 57% of all calories consumed. The agro-industry
also relied largely on imports (e.g. £53 million per year
on pesticides).
The 'Era of Rectification ' which started in the mid 1980's saw
the beginnings of diversification as the enthusiasm for monoculture
waned. Some state farms were turned into workers co-operatives,
large farms encouraged to put land down to mixed crops for local
use. Unfortunately events elsewhere brought this era to a close.
The collapse of the Soviet bloc threw Cuba's whole economic system
into crisis. This process was cut short by the collapse of the Soviet
bloc in 1990/91 which precipitated a massive economic crisis. Within
a year the country had lost over 80% of its foreign trade. Factories
closed or reduced production through lack of raw materials and resources,
sugar and other agricultural production was cut for the same reason.
Hunger returned to the island.
A priority for the government was to increase food production. The
enormous task facing them was to produce twice as much food with
less than half of the chemical inputs. Cuban farming's previous
dependency on mechanisation, artificial fertilisers and insecticides
meant that the soils were in poor condition having been sterilised
by agrochemical inputs and salinised by excessive irrigation.
Pushed by the loss of imported agrochemicals and pulled by a growing
awareness of environmental damage caused by intensive agricultural
techniques, the Cuban government looked to sustainable, organic
methods of cultivation to resuscitate and develop domestic food
production and make better use of the country's resources. A few
agricultural scientists had long advocated sustainable methods,
and it is to these people that the government turned for advice.
Large tracts of land were switched from export-oriented cash crops
to food crops. Government incentives encouraged people in large
urban centres to move back to work on the land. Oxen were reared
in large numbers to replace tractors for ploughing and transporting
crops. Organic methods such as integrated pest management, crop
rotation, composting and soil conservation were implemented. Research
institutes were set up to develop more sophisticated techniques
such as worm composting, soil inoculants and biopesticides. Over
200 biopesticides production centres were set up, run by university
graduates, children of the local farmers.
Urban Gardening in Cuba
For the vast majority of urban Cubans since the Revolution, food
came from a grocery store or supermarket. Growing food was generally
considered a part of campesino (peasant) life, left behind on the
move to the city. To encourage small scale food production in urban
areas, the government gave unused land to anyone who wanted to cultivate
it. Havana, with a fifth of the island's population, was a priority
area for urban food production. The provincial Ministry of Agriculture
(MinAgri) set up an urban agriculture department to give support
to the new gardeners, which was delivered through the activity of
the MinAgri outreach workers (extensionists) based in each of the
city's municipalities, and through direct support given to community
efforts. The department was also responsible for the shops which
supplied seeds, tools and sundries to the growers. The three types
of garden supported were known as huertos, organoponicos and autoconsumos.
This all created, almost overnight, a new urban gardening culture.
By the mid 1990's there were over 28,000 huertos in Havana city
province, run by 50-100,000 individuals. Some of this new army of
gardeners could remember farming with their parents 35 years ago,
before they moved to Havana. For many it was an entirely new occupation.
Huerto is Spanish for 'kitchen garden' and these are the equivalent
of allotments or smallholdings in Britain. They may be individual,
family or collective and some are attached to institutions such
as day care centres and schools. They range in size from postage
stamp to two or more hectares. Garden clubs are comparable to allotment
societies and may be a gathering of gardeners in a particular locality
or may be the overseers of a large patch, a parcela, divided into
a number of huertos. There are more than 19,000 individuals organised
into more than 800 clubs throughout Havana.
Auto-consumos are horticultural units attached to colleges, hospitals
and factories. The workers may be part or full time, working by
choice or placed there as a disciplinary punishment by their workplace.
The primary object is to produce food for the occupants/workers'
lunches.
Organopónicos originally were defunct hydroponic units which
had been re-filled with composted sugar cane waste and used to grow
vegetables and herbs organically. The success of this conversion
led to new ones being constructed As the ground itself is not cultivated
they could be built on any waste land including old car parks and
building sites. Some are state owned, others are cooperatives. The
vegetables produced are sold to the local communities, on-site or
at the farmers' markets. Beyond quota, the profits of the state-run
units are split between the state and the workers. 'Organopónico'
has become the general name for an urban market garden, with beds
raised by mulching as well as by containing the soil.
In 1992 Cuba wrote the resolutions passed by the Rio Earth Summit
into its constitution. By 1996 bylaws in Havana allowed only organic
methods of food production. In 1990 the city produced a negligible
amount of food. It now produces a substantial percentage of its
population's needs.
Once the city fully embraced organic methods the need for a separate
department was over and by 1998 the Urban Agriculture Department
was reorganised and each of its specific responsibilities became
a section in the provincial MinAgri. The number of shops rose from
three in 1996, to eight in 1998, and to 23 by early 2000. As well
as a source of necessary equipment the shops are now also advice
centres and a means for ordinary gardeners to make contact with
specialists and researchers. |
