Cuba: Patio de Justo 2

Justo invites me from the bright, hot Havana street with its colonial terraces into his high-ceilinged living room, retakes his seat at the table and continues to peel garlic.  It's dark and cool - the Spanish understood a little about thermal mass - and has the Cuban contrast of grandiose peeling plaster rosettes above humble brick-a-brack furnishings, which look slightly lost in their grand surroundings.

I´m here to see his roof garden so we step over chickens in the back yard and climb a rickety ladder.  The brick roof has been recoated - a three layer process of cement/lime, varnish and finally paint - and down the middle stands a row of strange pods that gush with herbs and small fruit trees, which I quickly recognise as old life raft casings.  To one side is a small kitchen area and to the other a row of rabit hutches, both roofed.

He talks me through the plants: lettuce, chives, sweet chili peppers, tomatoes (22 lbs from one plant this season) amongst others, and herbs like albahaca (basil), oregano and time.  There are dwarf lemon and guayaba trees that he is cultivating, removing alternating halves of the root structure annually to keep them small but full-fruiting.  It's a lovely space, lush and breezy, overlooking the rooftops and the kids playing baisball in the street below.

Justo is in his forties and learnt permaculture in the mid nineties with the Fundación Antonio Núñez Jiménez (FANJ).  In 1997 he decided with some others to start Club de los Azoteros (Azotea = rooftop terrace).  They thought more Cubans should make use of their rooftops and grow food there as well if possible.  Unfortunately the architects they invited to the initial planning meeting disagreed, horrified at the thought of fragile centenarian masonry sprouting weighty trees.  Thankfully on visiting an example the architects soon relaxed - though it was an understandable concern in this country of fast crumbling edificios.  The back and older half of Justo's roof remains bare, too unstable to utilize.

The club was launched, averaging fifteen rooftops and growing recently to twenty three.  "It´s been great" says Justo: sharing seeds, knowledge, activities, helping each other out.  "If you cannot close a cycle [linking up ecological cycles is one of the aims of permaculture] in your own home you can often do it within the group" he explains, giving the example of the rabbit feed he has received from others in the past.

As tempting as it might be, club members don´t sit round on their azoteas all day.  Outreach has included holding monthly food fairs, inviting neighbours to try home-cooked dishes with ingredients picked fresh from the roof.  "Cubans have a terrible habit of dismissing new food!" he says - one area that hasn´t embraced the revolutionary mindset, perhaps. "It is a highly traditional culture at this small scale of daily diet".  This is a problem for urban agriculture because much of the growable food is outside of this tradition.  Cubans do not really 'do' salads.  Pork, rice and beans is more the norm.  But once you get people to actually try things that can change: "'This is really good with albahaca' they´ll say, and once they have the motivation and they will grow it."  Whats more, "We realised that those we couldn´t attract with the permaculture ideas, we could do it through cooking!"

One of the greatest successes of the group, Justo explains, was working in an old persons home.  "I learnt a lot about the false concepts of old age", he says: the tendency for those in the 'third age' to tell themselves, or be told by their family, that they are too old for this or that.  Those interested were taught permaculture and were soon sowing and harvesting in the small garden they created, with almost no direction from Justo, and encouraging others to join in.  Despite their age they were more than open to new foods and ways of doing things.  "There are old people who are very young in energy" he says.  "Like Fidel." I note, smiling, who delighted fans and frustrated enemies alike with fifty years of full throttle leadership.

Pointing to the lattice of vine, Justo explains that for him this is the principle element.  It provided 600 lbs of grapes one year, the leaves are good rabbit food and he believes they should be promoted across Cuba as an energy saving technology - the pleasant shade can keep the house below it up to 8 degrees Celsius cooler, saving hours of air-conditioning.

He has found the government to be open and supportive of urban agriculture, especially during the Special Period [1], and feels that a lack of finance is what is now slowing progress.  With that in mind the Club applied for and received funding from a swiss NGO, for two years so far with a hoped-for third if the upcoming appraisal goes well.  The tensions of Cuba's two currency system and half-open economy are apparent here as everywhere: Justo earned four hundred times as much - yup, that´s 400 times - working for three months for a foreign-funded project, with a salary in the dollar-tied 'Convertables' currency, as he did in six months on a government funded project paying him in 'Pesos Nacionales'.

After a wonderfully mixed career as state economist, radio technician, drug-rehabilation office - "I have a problem: I like everything!" - Justo is thoroughly enjoying his latest incarnation as a permaculture teacher and facilitator.  "We must flower where God has put us", he says, continuing to peel his garlic.  Be that in back yards or on rooftops.

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[1] Decade beginning 1989 when collapse of the Soviet Block put severe stress on Cuba´s economy and food supply.

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Q&A: Justo Torres

1) What wisdom to we need for the 21st century?

"The rediscovery of love.  We´ve lost so much love."

2) What is broken in our relationship to plants?
"The spirit of man is broken.  The plants are there and waiting for us.  We´ve lost the capacity to interact in harmony with them, when we converted to industrialists."

3) What gives you hope?
"Faith in humanity.  I have faith in God, certainly, but I also have faith in humankind... or I want to have faith."

4) What stands in the way of that hope?
"The stupidity of humanity, which is as infinite as the universe.  I´m paraphrasing Albert Einstein, who said 'There are only two infinite things: the universe and mankind´s stupidity'."

5) What should we celebrate about being human?
"The fact that we´re still alive after committing so many disasters.  It´s almost a miracle!  Atomic bombs, pollution, wars, everything. A miracle!  My vision is global.  I´m a citizen of the earth. Everything is so interconnected that there is nothing we can do that doesn´t affect everything else.  The is the vision we are lacking!  Our responsibility is to act locally without ever loosing this global vision.  I´m playing my part by caring for this little part of Cuba in my own city.  All the problems come from us so all the answers can come from us."