Cuba: El Rapido

I gaze upwards nervously as the old man rearranges the two lengths of wood and then uses them to haul himself out of the large water tank before descending on a rickety ladder.  He comes over, his boots and hands spattered in grey sludge, smiling - he had to go back in to retrieve his keys!  And of course, he´d be happy to show me round 'El Rapido'.

Antonio Roiy Santo has a cheeky glint in his eyes and a note of purpose to his stride.  One wouldn´t dare suggest to him that at seventy-eight perhaps he should have found someone else to climb up and clean the garden´s water tank.  After a lifetime of determined struggle and resistance you know he´d hear none of it.  He´s an original revolutionary who advanced with Che Guevara in the Ejercicio Rebelde (Rebel Army) to free Cuba from 'Yankee imperialism'.  He introduces his 'younger' compañero (65 years old!) Carlos Alfonso Jimenez.  Together with two other retirees they work the quarter hectare vegetable garden 'El Retiro' in Santi Spiritus, Cuba.

El Retiro captures a lot about Cuba´s unique story of food.  When the Soviet Block collapsed in 1989 Cuba lost 80% of its foreign trade and supply of fuel almost overnight, and the US strengthened its 'blockade'.  Thus began what Fidel declared "The Special Period" of wartime style austerity measures in peacetime.  Without the cash, food, oil or fertilizer imports to fully support its population the average daily calorie intake plummeted, reaching a low of 1,863 (74% of the recommended amount)  in 1993 [1].  Verging on starvation the people began to raise animals in their houses and grow food wherever they could and with government acting midwife a national urban agriculture movement was born - of necessity.  So goes the story.  The 'organoponico' is in many ways the face of this movement: urban or peri-urban plots of raised vegetable beds, the name was coined when hydroponic grow beds, their imported nutrient solution no longer affordable, where filled with compost.

In El Rapido´s neat rows grow a wide selection of vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants: lechuga (lettuce); acelga (chard); rábano (raddish); remolacha (beetroot); zanahoria (carrot); espinaca (spinach); nabo (turnip); pepino (cucumber); berro (watercress); apio (cellery); cebollino (spring onion); aji (sweet chilli pepper; culantro (corriander); comino (cumin); perejil (parsley); orégano (oregano); aloe vera.  Shade netting covers the younger plants.  Biological pest control methods are used, including: application of an anti-parasitic spray made from Neem tree leaves; planting bug repelling, bug predator attracting and 'sacrificial' plants (such as sunflowers) at the end of each row; and using 'trampas de color' (colour traps) of yellow sheets painted in motor grease.   Water, "the most difficult thing", is pumped from a well with an electric pump - at first a windmill pump was used, but wasn´t effective in the slight urban winds.  It fills the tank, just cleaned, and from there a patched-together pipe system distributes it around the beds.

The site was previously a bus terminal parking lot.  It took just seven days to convert it, Antonio proudly explains, because the whole of the surrounding community helped out, placing the old cattle feeding troughs and filling them with gravel and earth.  It is part of the urban fabric, donating produce to the local hospital and children´s groups (circulos infantiles), and collecting organic waste from nearby houses to compost.  Children, teenagers and university students spend time there learning the basics.

Produce also goes to the four workers, of course, and the rest is sold at the little kiosk on site.  I ask whether they make a good living - they may be retired, but it´s hard to survive on the state pension of only around 100 pesos per month ($4 USD).  "It´s a good retirement, but we earn more than money" replies Antonio, who clearly loves the work.  They earn 800 pesos each per month ($33 USD) after expenses - El Rapido is completely self-financing.  That´s a good income in Cuba, where a doctor´s state salary is equivalent to only $40 USD per month.  Added to this are the savings they make on groceries - in Cuba food is perhaps the largest single expense for most families.

This tiny ex-parking lot contains many of the lessons from Cuba´s experience.  It shows the risks of industrial and import-based food supply and how important low-input urban agriculture becomes if this supply is interrupted.  It shows how a strong community can pull together to start growing food locally almost overnight.  It shows how crucial gardeners and farmers become when fossil fuels are scarce - with food prices and growers wages to match.  It perhaps also shows the limits of government central planning.  While state support helped to facilitate and organise a grassroots movement in Cuba, its efforts to control prices have perhaps recently hindered its growth.  One expert described a 'trading bottleneck' caused by government legislation in 2008 that forbade the nascent practice whereby urban agriculturists were importing additional produce from the countryside, to offer a wider selection to their customers.  Now groups like El Rapido can only sell their produce on site, and only their own produce. 

Many Cubans working in agriculture view sustainable, low-input practices as a continuation of the revolution: if the country is to protect its freedom it cannot allow its basic necessities, especially food, to be in the hands of a few external suppliers.  Seen in this way Antonio may have switched his Rebel Army rifle for a spade but the uniform still fits.

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[1] Data on Special Period import and calory reductions from the book Agriculture In The City, Cruz and Sanchez.

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Enjoyed 'El Rapido'?  More stories from throughout Latin America on their way:

• The eye poppingly productive micro family farm in Colombia
• Teasing Hindhu vegetables up from the sand in Peru
• The Seed Guardians rescuing genetic gems in Ecuador

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Colombia: Colombia En Hechos 2

There is no danger of forgetting the 'urban' part of the 'urban agriculture workshop'.  It is being held by Colombia En Hechos (CEH) at their headquarters, squeezed rudely close beside a six-lane artery in the the middle of sprawling Bogota.  The honks and grunts of irate motorists fade into the background, though, in the pleasantly colourful restaurant with its adjoining organic veg store.  Soon Margarita Olarte Zethelius is showing us how to make plant trays from two litre coke bottles and fold seed envelopes from sheets of paper.  It doesn´t seem like world-changing stuff.  Yet later, outside on the sidewalk, as the group builds tyre grow-beds and suspended sausage planters we attract plenty of attention from passers by, and coaxing a tiny strip of living space from between concrete and brick sounds a note of heroic optimism that perhaps is heard somewhere through Bogota´s choking streets.

Such optimism is clearly one of Margarita´s strengths and I can feel her positivity energize the room when she enters.  Pretty, with dark hair and freckles, she explains how Colombia En Hechos got started.  She and her now husband Nicolas had been biology students.  During research trips,  immersed in Colombia's amazing natural riches, they began to wonder how they could make an impact socially to help with wildlife conservation.  So they started to put on plays and produce educational material, for both village communities and city schools.  They were clearly good at it and soon large wildlife NGOs such as Conservation International wanted to work with them - "Start a formal organisation" they urged.  Having, understandably in hindsight, been refused the right to register 'Hecho en Colombia' ('Made in Colombia'), 'Colombia En Hechos' was born, which translates roughly as Colombia In The Making.  And this before either of them even graduated.

Primarily a conservation organisation, CEH uses a multi-disciplinary approach to environmental education, trying to increase communities' understanding and value of the natural world and equip them with sustainable alternatives.  Their major project is "Pandora Ecologica", a touring education display based on didactic games they have developed.  This grew out of their first paid work on the Rosario Islands off Colombia's Caribbean coast.  Since this they have connected with the ecovillage network and expanded their their remit to include permaculture teaching and consultancy.

Margarita explained their methodology for community work.  First they identify three things: (1) where they are working, mapping the area; (2) the needs of the community and various stakeholders, digging down from perhaps initial responses such as ´more money´ to find the real requirements such clean water, good food, security of income; and (3) resources available to the community.  While it is often a single endangered species, such the sea turtle, that sets the context, CEH always approaches with this holistic schema.  Then they may help the community to write up a 'Conservation Agreements', for protection of the wildlife, in exchange for training and support in sustainable living: permaculture food production, clean water provision etc.  It can be tough going. "At times people look at the Blackberry and laptop and think ´look at her making lots of money´" says Margarita, "but I need these for my work and they are not me.  You work with your heart in a community and soon they are growing carrots and coriander where it was practically a desert before and people are grateful because you have helped to show them an alternative."

Margarita and Nicolas have evolved from scientists to storytellers.  They will use every creative tool they can find to engage people in the wonder of nature, engender a desire to protect it (and therefore themselves) and help them to do this.  "One of the most important things we can all do is tell the stories of people that are living well and doing good things, that will make a wave of hope." she says.  This sensitivity to the power of our collective narrative makes Margarita wary of climate change, in a way that I find a little shocking to hear from a biologist.  "I think its a very dangerous weapon." she says.  "We can use it now because people are afraid.  And that´s really sad because it´s like war: 'I´m afraid so I´m going to do something'.  But it´s not really an evolution of human beings."

Here is the story that drives this biologist and storyteller; the more positive tale of human life evolving to a higher level of consciousness, of finally developing an ecological sensitivity, an appreciation of our place within an awesome web of life.  "Maybe I am mystical, but it is about human evolution." she says. "Life will go on without humans, or perhaps we can use our technology and build huge greenhouses and survive.  But, when you see the connection that we can have with nature, when you see evolution and you see how a flower evolves with a bee... that´s much more interesting".

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Name: Colombia En Hechos
Description: environmental education charity
Founded: 2000
Founders: Margarita Olarte Zethelius
Current Members: founders plus employees on project by project basis
Land: headquarters in Bogota; Reserva Marimonte; Reserva Fallín 
Food output: n/a 
Other ouput: n/a 
Activities: consultancy, educational workshops, community education projects 
Income sources: workshops, small restaurant and vegetable shop at headquarters, consultancy, educational outreach paid for by charities or government.