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Antonelli, G. 1990 'Soviet agriculture in the current transitional phase', Questione- Agraria, no 37, pp51-73 Argyris, C. and Sch n, D. A. 1996 Organisational Learning II , Theory, Methods and Practice, Reading MA, Addison-Wesley Csaki, C. 1998 'Agricultural research in transforming Central and Eastern Europe', European Review of Agricultural Economics, vol 25, no 3, pp289-306 Csizinszky, A. A. 2003 'Developing international collaborations in Central and Eastern Europe', Hortscience, vol 38, no...
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AGROINFOR 1998 Actualidades de la Agricultura, Bolet n 0 98, Havana, MINAG CNSV 2000 Estadisticas Centro Nacional de Sanidad Vegetal, Havana, MINAG Deere, C. D. 1996 The Evolution of Cuba's Agricultural Sector Debates, Controversies and Research Issues. International Working Paper Series IW96-3, Gainesville FL, Food and Resource Economics Department, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Deere, C. D. 1997 'Reforming Cuban Agriculture', Development and Change, vol 28, pp649-669 Deere, C....
Production targets
By the late 1990s, production plans were more formalized and each of the main types of urban farm had to meet planting quotas for certain crops based on population numbers. The aim was for each person to have local access to a target of 170g day of fresh produce, without this having to pass through the ration system. Above this quota, the producer was free to plant whatever he or she chose. Urban agriculture produced largely salad crops and other vegetables, with a smaller amount of medicinal...
Organoponicos
These consisted of constructed beds filled with soil and stones for drainage, and then with 40-50 per cent organic material. This raised-bed design was necessary due to the poor quality of the underlying urban terrain. Seeds were generally transplanted from nursery beds. In 1997, there were 400 organoponicos in Havana City alone. High-performing organoponicos were selected for preferential access to inputs and credit, which enabled them to install high-tech facilities such as cement pavements,...
Glossary and translations
agro-ecology the scientific basis of alternative agriculture, synonymous in some circles with collective social action on the eco-management of the natural resource base common usage in Latin America bagasse fibre remaining after the extraction of the sugar-bearing juice from sugarcane cachaza sugarcane waste campesinos traditional, peasant, small-scale, autonomous farmers canasta basica basic state ration comercio retail trade network minorista consejos People's Councils industrialized farming...
The further industrialization of Cuban agriculture
Given the hierarchical structure of pre-Revolution agriculture, Cuba found itself with few agronomists or technical specialists, most of them having fled the country. Traditional farmers still existed, but the prevailing political outlook placed greater trust in science and technology than local knowledge, and so Cuba developed a national agricultural system using imported technical expertise mainly from Eastern European countries. This led to the development of modernized, large-scale systems...
Future trajectories
When looking to the future, farmers tended to agree that they would use 'only the necessary' chemicals. Many saw organic as possible if certain conditions were satisfied the availability of substitute inputs, fuel, economic incentives, knowledge and training, and will. Most professionals in the agricultural support sector agreed that there would not be a return to the high input levels of the past. They had learned that an integrated, environmentally aware approach resulted in similar or higher...
References
Altieri, M. A. 1993 'The implications of Cuba's agricultural conversion for the general Latin American Agroecological Movement', Agriculture and Human Values, vol 10, no 3 Summer 1993 , pp91-92 Altieri, M. A., Rosset, P. and Thrupp, L. A. 2000 The Potential of Agroecology to Combat Hunger in the Developing World. www.cnr.berkeley.edu agroeco3 accessed in August 2008 Alvarez, J. 1994 Cuba's Infrastructure Profile, International Working Paper Series IW94-4, July 1994. Food and Resources Economics...
References 1
Adams, S., Langton, A. and Plackett, C. 2007 'Energy use in agriculture and horticulture moving to a low carbon economy', The Commercial Grower 9 August . accessed August 2008 Adriaansen-Tennekes, R., Bloksma, J., Huber, M. A. S., de Wit, J., Baars, E. W. and Baars, T. 2005 Organic Products and Health. Results of Milk Research 2005, The Netherlands, Louis Bolk Instituut Publications GVV06 Alfv n, T., Braun-Fahlander, C., Brunekreef, B., von Mutius, E., Riedler, J., Scheynius, A., van Hage, M.,...
The Food and Nutrition Surveillance System SISVAN
Shortfalls in supply continued to be identified and addressed by the Food and Nutrition Surveillance System, SISVAN, which was responsible for food availability, accessibility and adequacy. SISVAN was coordinated through the provincial network of the Institute for Food Hygiene and Nutrition INHA . The mandate of INHA's provincial centres was to bring together the provincial government with representatives from the agricultural, commercial, educational and public health sectors. At quarterly...
Farmers experiential evidence on the performance of organic agriculture
Farmers were clearly aware of the benefits as well as the negative impacts of the decrease in agrochemical use benefits to their own health as well as that of the soil, to livestock and the natural environment. Since agrochemical use had been limited, incidences of poisonings, allergies and skin diseases had disappeared. According to one CPA farmer, 'Those who work in fumigation can only work for five years maximum in that job and then have to change, because of illness - vomiting, nausea and...
The Transformation of AgriFood Systems
Globalization, Supply Chains and Smallholder Farmers Ellen B. McCullough, Prabhu L. Pingali and Kostas G. Stamoulis 'There should be a good market for this book. The topic is very timely and a major theme of the new World Development Report 2008. The editors and contributors are world class.' Derek Byerlee, World Bank 'This is a topic of wide interest and high policy importance. The depth of coverage and excellent synthesis should ensure that the book will have a substantial market in...
Onfarm food selfprovisioning
Farms were encouraged to renounce their rights to state rations when they became more self-sufficient. This showed that they were not a burden on the state, although some who had done this still received certain items such as sugar, oil and soap. The nature and type of self-provisioning varied by farm type. On some CPA cooperatives, self-provisioning took up a relatively small percentage of land area - only 8.3 per cent on one cooperative. In material terms, these CPA farmers were relatively...
Subsequent trends and challenges to the food system
The overall impact of all these changes was dramatic, according to one of the few contemporary accounts available, that of Oliveros Blet et al 1998 at the Faculty of Geography of the University of Havana. Food supply increased, and the influence of the black market was diminished, with black market prices falling by some 40 per cent. Urban agriculture also made a significant impact by providing competition to the farmers' markets so that prices in these markets decreased by 30 per cent between...
Impact on food security
The state maintained its investment in urban agriculture for several reasons the high food demand in the cities, the relatively high free-market price of fresh vegetables, the need to make nutritional improvements to the basic Cuban diet, the possibility of selling direct to the consumer from the farm gate and thus overcoming postharvest losses and transport restrictions, and the potential for employment creation in urban areas Wilson and Harris, 1996 . The income from urban agriculture was...
Scientific evidence on the performance of organic agriculture
Economic evaluations of organic production were indicating substantial cost benefits. Early evaluation of the CREEs showed the production costs of the cottage-industry manufacturing of biological pest and disease controls to be less than 1 per cent that of importing agrochemicals to do the same job, and the money spent stayed in Cuba and helped build up the local economy Maura, 1994 . The use of green manures was found to save 31 to 75 per hectare 623 to 1503 Cuban pesos , depending on the...
Orientation towards provincial and local selfreliance
At the World Food Summit in 1996, Castro stated, 'Food production here in the country's four mountain ranges , as well as for the rest of the country, is approached from the point of view of viable crops to attain self-reliance, with the aim of cutting down the food supplement they require.' This illustrated the shift in emphasis from a centralized distribution system to one of partial self-sufficiency and localized production-consumption chains at provincial level. Each Provincial Agricultural...
Notes Sns
1 The Latin American school is described by Altieri 1995 'Agro-ecology provides the basic principles to study, design and manage alternative agricultural ecosystems. It takes into account both the ecological and environmental dimension, and the economic, social and cultural aspects of the crisis of modern agriculture' cited in Monzote et al, 2002, p208 . 2 P rez and V zquez 2002, p136 explain in more detail 'Everyone asks what will become of ecological pest management in Cuba, as we emerge from...
Changes in dietary habits and the return ofWestern disease
The basic Cuban campesino diet comprised rice, beans, roots and tubers, meat and some salad. Regional variations existed less processed food and more traditional roots, milk, meat and rum were consumed to the west of the island more fried roots and tubers in the centre and more rice and soups 'slave food' to the east Nu ez Gonzalez and Gonzalez Noriega, 1995 . As a response to the crisis, people were encouraged to consume vegetable-based foods instead of animal protein. Since 1994, food...
Research perspectives
The material for this book is based on doctoral research that set out to answer these questions. Conducted between 1998 and 2005, this research was based at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and in Cuba at the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, INCA Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Agr colas . The research objective was to evaluate the implications for the food and agriculture sectors in Cuba of a widespread reduction in petroleum-based inputs. As discussed in Chapter 2, the...