While organic farming is growing across the U.S., the number of farmers in the Great Lakes using organic methods is still quite small. Not so, though, in Cuba. In the past decade that island nation has embraced small-scale organic farming and urban gardens. Production of vegetables has soared… which has attracted attention from experts in the Great Lakes region who are visiting Cuba in increasing numbers. Mary Stucky went along with one group to find out what the Cubans can teach Midwest farmers about farming.

[The following is a transcript of Mary Stucky’s radio report.]

Part 1

Mary Stucky: Cuban farmers had little choice about whether to embrace organic agriculture. Just seven years ago, the Cuban people faced starvation, but today.

Mavis Alvarez: “For us, we are alive, we are alive.”

Mary Stucky: For Mavis Alvarez, and other Cubans, just having survived is an accomplishment. When the Soviet Union collapsed, it had a ripple effect on Cuba as well. That’s because Cuba’s economy was based on financial assistance from the Soviet bloc, especially its food economy. And when that money stopped, Cuba’s citizens began to feel the effects. Before long, Cuba could no longer afford to import food, fertilizer or pesticides. So the government made a drastic decision. Food would be grown without chemicals using alternative methods. To many, it was seen as a major gamble…. but it worked.

(Natural sound from vegetable stand)

Vegetable stands in residential Havana display piles of lush vegetables at reasonable prices. While there are still severe shortages of meat and milk, the country is now producing four times the vegetables compared to the worst year of the food crisis – and this is done largely without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Diane Dodge: “I have so much respect for that and Cubans are evidently in the forefront.”

Mary Stucky: Diane Dodge is a master gardener from St. Paul, Minnesota. Among organic farmers, Cuba is renowned – and many, like Dodge, are visiting the island to see Cuba’s methods with their own eyes.

Diane Dodge: “They’re not necessarily trying to change anything. What they’re trying to do is go with the flow of nature and that’s very contrary to what we do. We’re always trying to manage nature, change nature and here it’s all of a piece.”

Mary Stucky: Cuba has combined organic farming methods including natural pest controls and fertilizers… along with a vast new system of urban gardens like this one in Havana.

(Natural sound of windmill)

A windmill pumps water for this garden. Ten years ago this was a weed patch. Now it’s a lush jungle of vegetables, spices and fruit… by law no chemicals can touch this soil. Through a translator gardener Ignacio Aguileras Garcias explains he feeds 10 family members from his plot.

Ignacio Aguileras Garcias: “Here we have 43 farmers and maybe only 8 or ten sell the products. The rest use the products for their own consumption. You work on your piece of land and you do with your production whatever you want.”

Mary Stucky: Just a few short years ago many Cubans were starving. Nowadays most Cubans are eating well enough to meet standards set by the United Nations. Some experts’ say that proves organic farming can feed a country’s people. Urban gardens produce more than half of the fruits and vegetables consumed in Cuba. Minor Sinclair lived in Cuba in the 1990’s. He represented Oxfam America, a charity working on food policy, and says it’s justified to use valuable urban land to grow food.

Minor Sinclair: “You produce it locally, you get people involved in the production, you market it locally. You can go out and walk two blocks and buy a head of lettuce that’s been removed from the earth right there in front of your eyes. And that lettuce lasts a week in the refrigerator. Better product, cheaper prices and better income for the farmers too.”

Mary Stucky: So what those who came to visit the farms have found is that in ten short years Cuba has transformed its agriculture production… and that’s a good thing, says the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Wayne Monsen.

Wayne Monsen: “You know they know how to feed themselves. I’m not sure Americans would know how to feed ourselves if there was a crisis where the food supply stopped.”

Mary Stucky: But Cubans are looking beyond feeding themselves. In February, the first certified organic sugar from Cuba was sold to European chocolate-makers. There’s a great demand in Europe for other organic foods as well. If organics become a Cuban export bonanza, it would certainly get the attention of farmers up north, in the Great Lakes.

Part 2

Cuba is in the midst of an unprecedented experiment in alternative agriculture… an experiment that’s attracting the attention of farmers in the Great Lakes. When the Soviet Union collapsed ten years ago, so did Cuba’s economy. Lacking money to import food and the chemicals to grow it, the Cuban government made a bold move – embracing organic farming and natural pest control. Mary Stucky takes a look at the lessons Great Lakes farmers may learn from Cuba’s organic experiment.

[The following is a transcript of Mary Stucky’s radio report.]

Mary Stucky: The agricultural transformation in Cuba is striking. In a land only recently dependent on imported chemicals, much of the farmland is now cultivated without chemical fertilizer or chemical pest controls. In a land where people were once starving, a vast system of urban gardens are producing more than half of the fruits and vegetables consumed in Cuba, completely without the use of chemicals. So while certain foods like meat and milk are in short supply, the United Nations reports that most Cubans are now consuming enough calories for a healthy life. There’s a pride in proving alternative agricultural methods can feed a country’s people. Fernando Funes made that point in the busy lunchroom at the agricultural research facility he runs near Havana.

Fernando Funes: “In the whole world we are a handful of people trying to go ahead with this struggle and we have to show that we are producing more healthy products that is healthy for nature. I don’t know what will happen in the future but I guess in my opinion, we are not going to come back because we have been proving very well that this paradigm is going to substitute the other one.”

Mary Stucky: Funes is out to spread the message that even the most chemical fertilizer and pesticide dependent farming can be transformed. Folks like the University of Minnesota’s Bill Wilcke are listening. Wilcke was recently in Cuba studying its agricultural innovations.

Bill Wilcke: “Their solution is ‘what do we have to fix the problem,’ trying to make use of their natural resources and their own human resources to make this work.”

Mary Stucky: It’s not that they don’t use any fertilizer, or pest controls – they do. It’s just that they involve far less chemicals. For instance, Cuba’s approach to fertilizer involves the production of worm humus in so-called vermiculture facilities – where staff regularly invites curious American farmers to visit.

Cuban farmer: “We use commonly just manure, but also the kitchen residues and many other organic matters. They eat double their size.”

Mary Stucky: This Cuban farmer explains how they feed manure or garbage to the worms, which then transform it into a richer, more potent fertilizer. That fertilizer has been used to dramatically improve yields for some crops in Cuba.

(Ambient sound from lab)

Throughout rural Cuba there are more than 200 centers for the production of natural pest controls – including bacteria that devour insect larvae. That’s an inexpensive – and largely effective – alternative to chemical pesticides. Alternatives such as these are well known in the United States. But because of the ready availability of chemicals and because alternatives don’t work well on some big cash crops, they’re little used in the U.S. right now. Still, developing alternatives makes good sense to the University of Minnesota’s Bill Willcke.

Bill Willcke: “I don’t know if we need to advocate abandoning technology, but I think we need to think about what some of our options are and we have to think about the scale of our agriculture, the kinds of technology that we use.”

Mary Stucky: Some economists say it’s foolish for countries like the U.S. to imitate Cuba. They say, why go back to what some call medieval farming methods, why use valuable urban land to grow food. But Minor Sinclair disagrees. Sinclair lived in Havana in the 1990’s, representing Oxfam America, a charity working on food policy. Sinclair says Cuba may be sitting on a gold mine, with the increasing demand for organic food.

Minor Sinclair: “Will Cuba’s agriculture be able to be a lighthouse for other developing countries in the region, and in some way even for farmers here in the United States. I hope so.”

Mary Stucky: Maybe someday, but most experts do not expect to see a system of organic farming and urban gardens widely embraced in the U.S. any time soon, at least not without a food crisis of Cuban proportions.