Introducing Cuba

Cuba was high on our list for places to check out and observe some permaculture and farming practices of Latin America as it is said to be one of the world leaders in sustainable and organic farming.

With the fall of the USSR in the early 90's, Cuba's import heavy economy was severely weakened making it very difficult to obtain chemical agriculture products. This, along with with other export limitations, put Cuba into a period of food crisis and sent the country scrambling for a way to feed itself.

Australian volunteers were sent help teach Cuban farmers and present agricultural organizations permaculture methods. The Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation for Nature and Humanity helped spread the permaculture vision across the country and slowly but surly Cuba's food production became more self sustainable.

We personally found the food in Cuba to be very limited and basic on all levels but there was always more than enough to survive. Across the country side and on the outskirts of every city we found small to medium scale food gardens like this one outside the western city of Vinales.

Here we observed raised beds with low flow sprinkler irrigation and mixed crops.

Things were looking pretty green with no added pesticides or artificial soil enrichment. 

Here is their soil enrichment for this garden. It's a road side kind of compost/burn site/manure dump. We observed passing ox and horse carts dumping out their manure bags where are place behind the animals rear when they travel by public road to keep the streets clean.