Cuba Video on Sustainable Agriculture

Sounds like... (4.00 / 3)

...what we used to do here, eh?

They imported many bicycles but they ultimately worked out a makeshift public transportation system that involves trucks adapted to serve as buses, carpooling, and hitchhiking.

Or at least, back in the days not too long ago (1970's) when the freight lines were subject to common carrier obligations as part of their being gifted massive and priceless amounts of publicly subsidized land, equipment, r&d and infrastructure...

I'm fascinated by the fact that the US itself stopped Cuba from "Americanizing" due to its bedwetting fear of phantom Communism (shades of our future fear of "terr'ism", huh?) making its way to our shores, and that if there were actually decent human beings running Cuba, that nation would be set up as the best in the Western Hemisphere to showcase itself as a model of future sustainability.

I'd be interested in finding out how walkable Cuba's towns and cities are, myself...

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by: JayinPhiladelphia @ Wed Apr 21, 2010 at 06:22:04 AM UTC

Here's a piece from Civil Eats... (4.00 / 4)

about Cuban agriculture. Not to diminish what they have done, but to suggest that it may not be an ideal model for the U.S.  Click on:

http://civileats.com/2010/04/2...

Comparisons between Cuban and American cultures and the effects on agriculture. Well worth reading.

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by: DennisP @ Wed Apr 21, 2010 at 14:55:50 PM UTC

That article is a definate must read (4.00 / 4)

What I take away from things like the urban ag, organic ag, etc. in Cuba is not so much, "Yeah, this is what we need to do", but more of an approach like "OK, here's what we'd like to do in the USA, or this or that city here", then take a look at what Cuba's doing and see what parts of that system could work, or could be adapted to our systems here.

The land policy in Cuba is way different than it is here, for one thing. Land, obviously, is the base for ag, no land, no growing. Even if you're growing vertically, you still have to have some land.

Also, with Cuba's return to livestock for traction, both ag and transportation, they have a lot of non-chemical inputs, way more probably than we do unless you want to start using manures from the CAFOs, which I would hesitate to use because of the drug use.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Wed Apr 21, 2010 at 15:52:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

3 to 5 years (4.00 / 3)

From the film, there are those numbers again - takes 3 to 5 years to bring the soil back to productivity after destruction by chemical agriculture.

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by: count @ Wed Apr 21, 2010 at 19:22:18 PM UTC

Cuba vs North Korea (4.00 / 4)

There's a lot of articles amongst the peak oil community comparing both Cuba's and North Korea's response to the loss of fossil fuels from the former Soviet Union. I think Dale Allen Pfeiffer's series was the first. Part 1, part 2. It goes without saying that North Korea suffered massive famine.

I think most market-based economies like ours would have great problems if there were massive migrations of people away from the cities and into ag areas in search of a life based on subsistence farming. Farms have grown huge in the US. How would the market economy make it practical for these farms to be broken up into small plots, for instance?  

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by: Crider @ Wed Apr 21, 2010 at 19:37:31 PM UTC

This already happened in California once (4.00 / 5)

There once were very large farms growing grain. Between 1890 and 1914 agriculture in California switched from extensive ag (very large farms growing grains) to intensive ag (smaller acreage farms growing vegetables and fruits, etc.).

The Evolution of California Agriculture
1850-2000

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Wed Apr 21, 2010 at 23:11:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Cool! (4.00 / 4)

I learning something else reading that article. In California one can plant spring wheat in the fall because the winter's are mild. That must be why Sonora was such a successful variety.

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by: Crider @ Thu Apr 22, 2010 at 19:37:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

misdirected concern? (4.00 / 3)

Nobody I know envisions much migration in search of lives based on subsistence farming. Migrations to develop market farming, entirely different possibility, and one whose realization is in the distant future, if at all.

Market farming isn't necessarily about a thousand acres of soybeans and corn. Depends on what you mean by small plots, I guess. Maybe it also depends on what you mean by subsistence farming. 40, 50, 60 acres could be very productive if that's all that's available, but even a thousand acres could be much more useful if turned over to a variety of sustainably raised crops. (How big is Polyface?)

I don't see the problem you apparently see. Could you write a little more about that?

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by: count @ Wed Apr 21, 2010 at 23:40:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think that Polyface is farming over 1,000 acres now (4.00 / 3)

but they are also supplying a Chipotle restaurant as well as individual consumers, farmers markets, and other small restaurants.

There was a study done in the Damascus, Oregon area, which determined that a person could support themselves financially on as small as 3 acres. I think that was for market gardening.

The key to market gardening succesfully is proximity to your consumers. That means smaller plots in cities and close in to cities. Someone with a thousand or more acres 100 miles from a city will be faced by some more extremem logistics than a person on 5 acres a few miles from the city limits.

Of course, the person close in to the city is facing financial hurdles that the large farm far away doesn't face, namely property taxes (which in Oregon can be greatly reduced by having the acreage in ag use). Also, the large outlying acreages would probably be on wells or with water rights in streams, buying water from irrigation districts, etc. while the close in acreage may be on city water.  

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Thu Apr 22, 2010 at 00:11:18 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh I do (4.00 / 4)

It happened in the US during the Great Depression. I suspect it has happened in Cuba because that film said farming is now one of the highest paying jobs.

I think it's suburbia which is going to become ghost towns in the event gasoline becomes $8 a gallon and wheat becomes $3 a pound. Perhaps they'll tear down houses and turn the lots into gardens, but who is 'they'? Those homes and lots will still be owned by individuals and banks -- even if they are empty. Also, what type of cash, locally-vibrant economy can work in suburbia when people need motorized transport just to go shopping?

I think the draw of cities will keep food flowing into them even if fossil fuel becomes very expensive.

Out in the country, perhaps our current huge megafarms will then morph into little serfdoms as fossil fuel-powered equipment, fertilizer and pesticides are replaced with animals and hired hands. But Joanne made an interesting case that those huge farms could be sold off and split.

Without cheap fossil fuel, I believe there will be much more human labor needed for agriculture. Now way do I think it's going to be replaced with alternative-fueled equipment and go on as it had before. With fossil fuels comprising 10 calories for every 1 calorie delivered, ethanol or lithium battery-powered equipment would be totally incoherant.

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by: Crider @ Thu Apr 22, 2010 at 19:15:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

One of the problems with splitting the large acreage farms into smaller holdings (4.00 / 2)

wouls be housing.

I don't know how it is in other states, but here in Oregon, if you buy land that's zoned Exclusive Farm Use (EFU), it's my understanding that if the land doesn't already have a home on it, you have to gross at least $80,000 in ag income from that property to be able to build a house on it. If a person can't live on the property that they're farming, then all you're doing is shifting the travel to work from a suburb to city route to a suburb to farm route. You're still going to have lots of driving, and if you're farming, I can tell you from experience, you ain't going to be working an 8 hour day.

I havent had an 8 hour day in over a month. This time of year 12-16 hour days are the norm for me, with no days off. I won't have anything more than a couple hours off or the odd day here or there for the next 6+ months.

If your commute is only several hundred feet or less, it's much easier to work those kinds of hours.

I'm also farming land out in the Canby/Aurora area, about 15 miles from here and travel just takes an hour or so out of the work day for the commute. The only reason I'm doing it is because I don't have to pay rent on the land, and the land owner did the tractor work for me, I'm planting low maintenance crops like potatoes and field corn, dry beans, winter squash, etc. out there. All the high maintenance crops like herbs, summer squash, green beans, sweet corn, tomatoes, cukes, etc. are here at home where my commute is about 50'.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Thu Apr 22, 2010 at 23:09:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

about farming being one of the highest paid jobs (4.00 / 1)

here farming makes up only 11% of income for farm families. Sad, huh?

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Sat Apr 24, 2010 at 07:00:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

60 degrees (4.00 / 3)

When a speaker says solar heated water is obtained at 60 degrees, he probably means 60 degrees Celsius (or centigrade). That would be about 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

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by: count @ Wed Apr 21, 2010 at 19:44:42 PM UTC