For Miladis Bouza, the global food crisis arrived two decades ago. Now, her efforts to climb out of it could serve as a model for people around the world struggling to feed their families.
Bouza was a research biologist, living a solidly middle-class existence, when the collapse of the Soviet Union — and the halt of its subsidized food shipments to Cuba — effectively cut her government salary to US$3 a month. Suddenly, a trip to the grocery store was out of reach.
She therefore quit her job and under a program championed by then-defense minister Raul Castro, asked the government for the right to farm an overgrown, 0.2 hectare lot near her Havana home. Now, her husband tends rows of tomatoes, sweet potatoes and spinach, while Bouza, 48, sells the produce at a stall on a busy street.
Neighbors are happy with cheap vegetables fresh from the field.
Bouza never lacks for fresh produce, and she pulls in between 2,000 to 5,000 pesos (US$100 to US$250) a month — many times the average government salary of 408 pesos.
“All that money is mine,” she said. “The only thing I have to buy is protein” — meat.
Cuba’s urban farming program has been a stunning, and surprising, success. The farms, many of them on tiny plots like Bouza’s, now supply much of Cuba’s vegetables. They also provide 350,000 jobs nationwide with relatively high pay and have transformed eating habits in a nation accustomed to a less-than-ideal diet of rice and beans and canned goods from Eastern Europe.
From 1989 to 1993, Cubans went from eating an average of 3,004 calories a day to only 2,323, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said, as shelves emptied of the Soviet goods that made up two-thirds of Cuba’s food. Today, they eat 3,547 calories a day — more than what the US government recommends for US citizens.
“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,” she said.
Of course, urban farms might not be such a success in a healthy, competitive economy.
As it is, productivity is low at Cuba’s large, state-run farms where workers lack incentives.
Government-supplied rations — mostly imported from the US — provide such staples as rice, beans and cooking oil, but not fresh produce. Importers bring in only what central planners want, so the market doesn’t correct for gaps.
Still, experts say the basic idea behind urban farming has a lot of promise.
“It’s land that otherwise would be sitting idle. It requires little or no transportation to get [produce] to market,” said Bill Messina, an agricultural economist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. “It’s good anyway you look at it.”
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is constructing a new counter-stealth radar system on a disputed reef in the South China Sea that would significantly expand its surveillance capabilities in the region, satellite imagery suggests. Analysis by London-based think tank Chatham House suggests China is upgrading its outpost on Triton Island (Jhongjian Island, 中建島) on the southwest corner of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), building what might be a launching point for an anti-ship missile battery and sophisticated radar system. “By constraining the US ability to operate stealth aircraft, and threaten stealth aircraft, these capabilities in the South China Sea send
HAVANA: Repeated blackouts have left residents of the Cuban capital concerned about food, water supply and the nation’s future, but so far, there have been few protests Maria Elena Cardenas, 76, lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana’s colonial old town. The building has an elegant past, but for the last few days Maria has been cooking with sticks she had found on the street. “You know, we Cubans manage the best we can,” she said. She lives in the shelter because her home collapsed, a regular occurrence in the poorest, oldest parts of the beautiful city. Cuba’s government has spent the last days attempting to get the island’s national grid functioning after repeated island-wide blackouts. Without power, sleep becomes difficult in the heat, food
Botswana is this week holding a presidential election energized by a campaign by one previous head-of-state to unseat his handpicked successor whose first term has seen rising discontent amid a downturn in the diamond-dependent economy. The charismatic Ian Khama dramatically returned from self-exile six weeks ago determined to undo what he has called a “mistake” in handing over in 2018 to Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who seeks re-election tomorrow. While he cannot run as president again having served two terms, Khama has worked his influence and standing to support the opposition in the southern African country of 2.6 million people. “The return of
SOUTH CHINA SEA TENSIONS: Beijing’s ‘pronounced aggressiveness’ and ‘misbehavior’ forced countries to band together, the Philippine defense chief said The Philippines is confident in the continuity of US policies in the Asia-Pacific region after the US presidential election, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said, underlining that bilateral relations would remain strong regardless of the outcome. The alliance between the two countries is anchored in shared security goals and a commitment to uphold international law, including in the contested waters of the South China Sea, Teodoro said. “Our support for initiatives, bilaterally and multilaterally ... is bipartisan, aside from the fact that we are operating together on institutional grounds, on foundational grounds,” Teodoro said in an interview. China’s “misbehavior” in the South
RSS