Edible Cities: Havana

Thanks for the post! It's really great to see what people can do when the need arises.
My dad always said, "Can't never could." So far I have found few things I couldn't do when I decided to.
I have always had a small garden, until I had to start working out of town, and I do miss my fresh veggies. I even miss the work of putting them up in jars for the winter.

It's gonna take a lot of work to get lazy fat Americans to give up some of the status, i.e. vehicular transportation and actually show the resolve that Cuba clearly expresses. All of our resolve currently comes out the end of a gun and most of our eating takes place on the run. That’s all wrong. Great all around work Cuba.

By keeping tabs on other countries who, like Cuba, have already been experiencing a food crisis for decades, I can see why the US is so very far behind in reacting and acting. US economy, as messed up as it is, doesn't begin to compare to other's in urgently needed change and, as a result, has been terribly slow to get motivated.
The US has much to learn from it's innovative neighbor.

This is so uplifting and inspiring. Thank you. It is much needed.

So much negative is said about Cuba.......glad to see this other side.

During the 1990s, the Cuban government began transforming the agricultural system by giving empty city lots to workers willing to farm them and by encouraging organic methods – then a response to the shortage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. City farming took off and today 300,000 people - of which 40,000 are retirees - are employed in urban and peri-urban agriculture.

Cuba's National Urban Agriculture Program has the backing of six government ministries and around 20 other institutions, social organizations and scientific research centers, which coordinate the work of thousands of intensive gardens, suburban farms, micro household gardens and other innovative forms of production.

According to an Oxfam report: ‘Today half of the fresh produce consumed by two million Havana residents is grown by ‘nontraditional urban producers’ in abandoned lots and green spaces wedged into the crowded typography of the city.’

‘It’s a really interesting model looking at what’s possible in a nation that’s 80 percent urban,’ said Catherine Murphy, a California sociologist who spent a decade studying farms in Havana. ‘It shows that cities can produce huge amounts of their own food, and you get all kinds of social and ecological benefits.’

Among these benefits, 5,000 garbage dumps have been turned into productive vegetable gardens across Havana, and day-care centers, senior citizen homes and semi-boarding schools for primary school students, and other social centers are linked to these production areas and receive 25 percent price discounts.

With fuel prices and food shortages causing unrest and hunger across the world, many say the Cuban model should proliferate. ‘There are certain issues where we think Cuba has a lot to teach the world. Urban agriculture is one of them,’ said Beat Schmid, coordinator of Cuba programs for the charity Oxfam International.

While many countries have experimented with urban farming - Cuba’s initial steps were modeled after a green belt surrounding Shanghai - nowhere has it been used so widely to transform the way a country feeds itself.

Source:
Colombia Tribune