Beautifully constructed organopónico at Alamar, outside Havana

We started the day with another session from Daniel, this time focusing on the construction of sustainable food growing sites. It was interesting to learn the level of knowledge that the Cubans have in constructing these things. For example, the average hectare of organopónicos ,which are growing sites using raised beds because the soil isn’t so good, includes 122 beds which are all 120cm wide, 20 – 30cm deep, no longer than 30m in length and 30cm in depth. It was also clear that there are definite benefits from growing in this way, which are also true of huertas intensivas which are the same as organopónicos but without raised beds because the soil is sufficiently fertile to cultivate:

• They allow for sustainable intensive production.
• They can include a wide variety of cultivars.
• They make use of unproductive land and vacant urban areas.
• Their systems can be adapted to different contexts.
• They only need a low initial investment to set them up.
• They offer accessible employment within local communities.

During lunch some of the group wanted to visit the Tienda Agropecuario in Santiago to learn more about the support that this resource gave to local food producers. As I was the only person in the group who knew where it was I took everyone up there, followed by a trip to the two little parcelas I knew in Santiago to look at them as well. It was nice to be out in town with the group but it was also frustrating because we are so conspicuous when we are all out together. There was something very nice about when I was at INIFAT on my own because it meant I could go about my business in town without immediately drawing attention to myself. Now, in this big group, it was very different. Illustrated by the fact that this trip into town was the first time that I had experienced any begging in Cuba, with a small boy begging from money because he knew the group were from Mexico and probably thought they would have money that they could give him. Very sad.

Advice for growers in the Tienda Agropecuario in Santiago de las Vegas

The afternoon at INIFAT was another practical session with Daniel looking specifically at Vermiculture, or worm compost, which is the backbone of urban agriculture in Cuba. However, as the class went on Daniel began to give his own perspective on the Cuban political system, which was fascinating. He revealed that he earns 23 CUC per month, which translates to about £14. Even with access to the NP economy, food rationing and state subsidy of many things this is a punishingly low wage to survive on. However, Daniel’s opinion was that he has everything that he could ask for in Cuba in terms of health, education, community…etc… so why should he want anything else or ask for anything more? Once again reinforcing the strong commitment that many Cuban’s have to their own country and community.

More Cuban vermiculture - this time at Alamar

Then it was on to the evening with more food – they feed us constantly here. There was also more opportunity to talk and hear Spanish. The next day there was a trip planned to Alamar, one of the most famous urban agriculture sites in Cuba. We also all felt ready for the trip out as it was getting quite intense for the whole group to be together at the ministry every day!

And that’s it. There I was at the end of my first week in Cuba and it felt just as great as I had thought and hoped it might feel. I like Cubans, who are on the whole generous, kind and intelligent. I also like Mexicans too though many of them are much more tied up in Western preoccupations than I had imagined they may be. I would also have imagined them to have more sensitivity to the Cuban situation than some of them did making the lack of understanding from some members of the group a big surprise.

In my first week I also discovered:

• There are lots of ways of eating eggs. Even as an accompaniment to bananas.
• Dual currencies are desperately confusing for everyone involved.
• Cuban mosquitoes love Mancunian skin.
• Sun makes you feel good – especially when the weather is hot.

Mosquitos prompt extreme fashion responses

• Read about crop rotation and decide how you are going to rotate your planting, preferably using a four year rotation if you can. This may seem pretty indepth thinking at this early stage but good early planning and soil care will help you get the best out of your plot in the long run.
• Make a list of what you want to plant and work out where and when you will be planting it. For my plot this plan is quite complicated because I insist upon growing lots of obscure cultivars. It doesn't need to be if you are sensbile enough to grow a smaller selection of crops which is probably wise whilst you are finding your feed! Good planning at the start of the season will make sure you get the best out of growing by planting each different plant at just the right time.
• Don't panic if you don't manage to cultivate the whole plot in your first year. So long as you keep it clean and tidy and don't let the weeds run away with you it'll be fine. And if you cultivate a small area and manage to grow something you really love to eat, that first allotment grown meal or snack should be tasty enough to inspire you to grow bigger and better each year.
• Grow things that you really want to eat - especially if you only have a small space! Potatoes and onions are cheap to buy so concentrate your efforts on growing more unusual crops that you know you will enjoy growing and that you can't buy on your local market. I do grow onions and spuds if I can fit them in, but only unusual varieties. And I would much rather fill my space with things like sweetcorn, pumpkins, tomatillos... the list could go on to include anything that we love eating but can't easily buy.
• Invest in a good book to help you on your way. I would recommend Joy Larkom's Grow Your Own Vegetables which has been an absolute bible for us. Or Monty Don's The Complete Gardener which is beautifully written, full of glorious pictures and also includes loads of information on growing flowers and other non-edible plants.
• Keep on visiting blogs like this to find out what other people are growing or get involved in online communities like UK Veg Gardeners. The online growing and gardening community is now very large and active and is a great place to share ideas, find solutions to problems and learn directly from other growers who have a little more experience than you.

Happy growing to all the new growers out there in 2012. Here's to a productive and tasty year ahead.

The next problem was that when I got up properly in the morning I knew at once that I didn’t have my Spanish head on. Things just felt fuzzy on that front, which was frustrating, as I had done so well with the language the day before.

After breakfast the first session of the day was with Marisol who had been so kind to me in my first couple of days at INIFAT. The theme of her seminar was the agro-ecological management of soil. This was a particular challenge as there was a great deal of terminology that was well outside my existing scope of knowledge of the Spanish language, as well as being outside the scope of my little dictionary!

Experimental Organopónico beds at INIFAT

Marisol explained that for agriculture to have a foundation in ecology it needed to be founded on a basis of animal health, human health and environmental protection. Soil came into this as a key principle component of an ecosystem alongside climate and fauna / vegetation. So what do we mean when we talk about soil?

• A structure with its own system.
• Biological, living and dynamic.
• Complete and open.
• Structured.
• Multi-faceted.
• Multi-functional.
• That has fertility.

Soil has  harmonic equilibrium that exists in its physical state, and the produces environment that permits the development of a plant ecosystem. On this basis all sustainability needs a fundamental basis within the fertility of soil with soil managed in a variety of different ways from the application of organic fertilisers to crop rotation.

Making compost - Cuban style

After lunch was a practical workshop with Daniel Balmaseda developing some of Marisol’s ideas further and looking at the production of organic fertilisers and substrates. We learnt about compost and its production, which is very different to the systems that we use in the UK due to a much higher air temperature. Interestingly we also learnt about the vermiculture techniques that have been an absolute backbone in the development of Urban Agriculture in Cuba. This technique combines composting action alongside the action of worms and microorganisms to transform organic residues, derived from farming of all types, into two different products of high quality and low cost:

• Humus
• Proteins.

For this reason you will find an area for worm composting on every urban growing site that you visit in Cuba. And the rules of where they are situated are that they need clean water, to be close to source material, to be well drained, shaded and in an area that isn’t likely to be flooded or to be overwhelmed by heavy rain.

Making worm compost at INIFAT

So that is what I managed to get through, though the language was pretty intense! By teatime I felt worn out meaning that after dinner when most of the group headed into Havana with Daniel as their guide I decided to give it a miss. On one hand because I didn’t relish the prospect of a 1.5 hour bus journey, but also because the day had made me tired and I wanted to recharge my batteries so I could get as much out of the next day as possible.  On that Tuesday I slept very, very well in my cosy little room in Santiago de las Vegas!

My Mexican Friends at INIFAT

But before I start telling you about the programme let me introduce you to my new classmates.

Conchita ­– a housewife who grew lettuces using hydroponics and who also has horses that her husband hired out for weddings and other celebrations.

Alberta – who worked for a rural development programme with special focus upon women working in rural areas.

Maritza – who grew ornamental plants and flowers, as well as corn. She was in Cuba because she wanted to learn more about organic production.

Rosa – grew medicinal and ornamental plants.

Leonardo – a producer of pork and pigs and other related products. He was in Cuba because he wanted to learn more about the production of corn as an animal feed.

Maria – an actuary, who lived on the family small holding. Before inheriting this she had no contact with growing or agriculture.

David – a student of Agro-ecology with a specific interest in organic agriculture and compost.

Maria Minerva –a small producer of rabbits who wanted to learn how to cultivate food for her rabbits.

Alejandra – a housewife who grew lettuces and tomatoes in a roof garden using hydroponics.

Valentine – interested in capacity building around Agro-economy. Also interested in native Mexican corn species and their cultivation.

Alejandro – corn producer.

Miguel – a small holder interested in returning to more traditional and sustainable forms of agriculture.

Paula - a vet.

Alfredo – a corn producer.

Grasila – worked in community development with particular focus upon urban agriculture.

Alejandra – worked in commercialisation of vermiculture systems.

The day began with Maritza who co-ordinates international programmes at INIFAT giving an introduction to the work that they do there. This was followed by a presentation on the basic foundations of Urban Agriculture in Cuba from Dr Nelso Companioni who founded the Urban Agriculture programme at INIFAT and who remains one of the leaders in the field.

Typical urban farming site in Cuba

Nelso explained that Urban Agriculture was a key form of agriculture for the future in Cuba. As well as having a role providing food within communities it was also thought to have a role in public health and the preservation of the health of the soil and the environment. It focuses upon native crops where possible, as these are generally easiest to grow using organic methodologies. He also explained the support system that has been put in place to make Urban Agriculture possible on the island, and highlighted the fact that all of this was seen within a context of sustainable development.

The key factors within Cuba’s Urban Agriculture Strategy were explained as:

1.      Making use of mechanisms that incentivise and give interest to people to produce food and to develop their skills.

2.     Supporting a rational and intensive use of all available land, with each area having its own defined programmes and specialities.

3.     Cultivating the maximum diversity of species and varieties in each garden, patio…etc… in order to create a strong base of cultivation that will guarantee seeds for future growing.

4.     Elevating the culture and knowledge of food and the environment through a programme of outreach education for the public and for food producers.

5.     Developing a wide basis of support and co-ordination on a national level.

He also outlined his ideas on the key foundations of success and support in Urban Agriculture in Cuba:

• Inclusive participation on all levels with integration and collaboration at the heart of everything.
• The development of outreach and community support as crucial to driving the national programme forward.
• The development of a National School (where I was at INIFAT!) as crucial in its support of producers, as well as those managing urban agriculture programmes. The school has also helped develop Urban Agriculture around the world with “extensionistas” from the school allowing for the transfer of knowledge, as well as constructing a vehicle for excellence within development.
• Commercialisation is key in form that is flexible and easy with no more that 2 or 3 stages between the producer and the customer.
• Investment from the Ministry of Agriculture in an ongoing strand of research so that Urban Agriculture is developing constantly and so that it is supported with a system of control and evaluation.

Then in the afternoon Dr Rosalía González took us through the fundamentals of Agroecology within the context of Urban Agriculture. She began by introducing the concept of the Cuban Green Revolution that occurred in Cuba in the early 90s as a result of the Special Period. In their case this revolution was reflected in a desire to change the agricultural systems and technologies that had lead to misuse of chemicals, energy, mechanisation and monocultures. It also recognises the crucial link between man, the environment, society and the physical world. Finally it bases itself upon a foundation of sustainable development:

“Development that satisfies the necessities of this generation without compromising the capacity of future generations to satisfy their own needs.”

In reflection of this definition Urban Agriculture in Cuba is regarded as a crucial part of the sustainable development of cities. The system of a city is traditionally linear and not reflective of natural systems that are circular. It is the integration of Urban Agriculture into this system that makes the creation of a circular, and therefore sustainable, system in a city possible. Rosalía then went on to explain how agroecology complemented and supported this thinking in a variety of ways:

• Through the optimisation of the use of locally available resources, combining them as part of a system.
• By reducing the use of external resources, and resources that do not contribute to the health of the producer and the consumer.
• By combating causes and not symptoms.
• By asking “what is available locally to use and to support what we want to achieve?”
• By considering the relation between the design of cultivation, its potential productivity and the local environment.
• By working to value and conserve biodiversity and make optimum use of the biological and genetic diversity of species of plants in surrounding areas.
• By valuing the practices and knowledge of local people even though this knowledge is rarely scientifically verified.

Inventive recycling in a Cuban garden

And what was the biggest revelation of everything that I had learnt on that day? That, rather excitingly, I actually managed, more or less, to follow what was going on. How good did that feel? After all the years of studying Spanish I could actually understand and be understood in the gorgeous language that I had invested so much time in. Good stuff! Good stuff indeed!

After the day’s seminars I had a bit of time in the evening to start getting to know the Mexicans, who seemed to be a lovely bunch of people. It was interesting to hear their experiences of cultivating food in a huge variety of places in Mexico City. Like Ale for example, who supported her family by growing lettuces on her roof using hydroponics. A wholly inspirational day at INIFAT.

The Capitolio

The drive into Havana took about half an hour and when we arrived we were dropped right in the centre outside the Capitolio Nacional that is at the heart of the city. It was built as a result of money earned from sugar by Cuba’s US-backed dictator Gerardo Machado between 1926 and 1930 and still remains one of the grandest buildings in the city. It cost around US$17 million to build and was made in similar style to the American Capitol Building in Washington DC. Originally the home of the Cuban Congress, it became the home of the Cuban Academy of Sciences and the National Library of Science and Technology in 1959, and still reamins their home today. From there we walked down into Havana Vieja which is the beautifully, if a little clinically, restored historical heart of the city.

This part of the city is one the best-preserved Spanish colonial centres in the Caribbean and Americas and is jam packed with over 900 buildings of historical importance in an astonishing variety of different architectural styles. Full of cobbled streets, shaded alleyways, 16^th Century buildings and leafy courtyards, the whole area was left virtually untouched from the 1960s to the 1990s. This meant that although it fell into serious disrepair and decay it also retained its historical integrity intact. We began our exploration of the area by heading down Calle Obispo that is one of the main ways of getting through the neighbourhood, and that was already packed with lots and lots of tourists by the time we got there. From there we headed to the Camera Obscura on the corner of Plaza Vieja that is one of the oldest and most beautiful squares in Havana. This was Marisol’s idea and it was a very good one because the camera and its tower gave amazing views and an excellent introduction to the geography of this part of the city.

View of the city from the Camera Obscura

After this we carried on walking, passing through the gorgeous Plaza de Armas where we sat a bit to admire the architecture, before carrying on through Havana Vieja to Centro Havana. This is a part of the city that many visitors ignore but it certainly gives a more realistic, less sterile view of what life is like for Cubans who live in Havana. It’s a much more residential neighbourhood than Havana Vieja and much less beautiful in many ways, but it’s got amazing energy and is the place you’re more likely to see children playing in the streets and people out on their doorstep chatting to their neighbours. Here we found a basic NP cafeteria to eat lunch. And where Roberto discovered much to his amusement that in me he had met his first vegetarian – a great rarity in Cuba so it seems! It was whilst we were eating this meal that the enquiries and questions started- something I was learning quickly was that as soon as Cubans feel relaxed with you and comfortable they also feel happy to start asking questions. Today it was Roberto’s turn…

“What is the average salary in the UK?... How do taxes work?... How much tax do you pay?... How much does a house cost?”

The questions are never rude or pushy, normally just genuinely curious. And sometimes with a melancholy undertone that life would have so many more possibilities if they lived somewhere else. As Roberto interrogated me I was happy to answer his questions because I have nothing to hide and no embarrassment about my country, but also because I felt it was important to reinforce my own belief that every country and every way of life had positive and negative aspects that have to be taken into consideration. Nothing is ever as simple as black and white. For example, of course it is true that Cubans earn a very low wage compared to people in the UK, but they do also have access to some of the best health care in the world. Cubans also have fluctuating access to basic things like electricity, and access to many consumer goods is limited and expensive, but their education system is top class with an adult literacy rate on the island of 100% - impressive by anyone’s standards. Of course, Cuba is the only place that Roberto has any experience of so it is hard for him to make an informed decision about whether the way of life there is the one that he wants to live. And this lack of information seemed to make this bright young man who wanted his own independence feel that he was being hindered making the decisions about his own life that he wanted to make.

Glimpse into Centro Havana

So that’s another part of the Cuban dilemma, a highly educated knowledgeable population who are hungry to know more but who aren’t able to due to lack of access to information. Almost the polar opposite to many situations in the UK where people have the knowledge of the world at their fingertips, a great privilege, but they decide to turn their back upon it. And the reason for doing this seems to be almost as though their capacity to act and react has been almost entirely deadened by the world that they live in.

As José had said the day before;

“Cuba – a country of contradictions.”

And here was another one for me to try and get my head around. Only a couple of days in and I could already see that my trip to Cuba was going to give me a lot of food for thought, and this was before my learning proper had even started at the Ministry. I couldn’t even imagine what that may hold when I started properly the following day.

PS For those of you who tune into this blog to learn more about organic growing and who have been bored to death learning about Cuba instead I promise that the next installment of the Cuban adventure will really start to get to the bottom of how they grow food in their cities. I promise it'll be worth the wait!