Thanks, for the post, Paul.

I am entirely impressed by the Cuban people's adjustment to local food production. As an example or paragon for us however, I can only repeat what I've said before, that I believe we don't have anywhere remotely the general poverty or difficulty of circumstances needed to compel big numbers of people to want to do something similar. The striking feature in the snippet you posted is the observation that local food-growing jobs pay better than many other available jobs, whereas everywhere in this country and in Canada it's quite the opposite.

Obviously, most people aren't going to consider a job that pays less well than other easily obtainable jobs in their region.

paulns: Cuba had to adjust from large scale USSR-style agriculture (similar in many ways to our own) when Russian support was removed. The adjustment wasn't easy and, I suspect, isn't yet complete. My point (at last) is that we too will need to adjust subsequent to Peak Oil, which is just around the corner. Food production, processing, and distribution are very dependent on oil. As we are learning, the price of food is closely linked to the price of oil. But the O. Henry ending for me is that the future of agriculture will be local and organic. And growing vegetables in the backyard will increase by orders of magnitude. Regards, Peter.

I think we will handle the coming crisis with a great deal less maturity than the Cubans did. Were there riots there when the Soviets cut off supplies? I don't recall ever reading about any. I remember thinking when I was in Cuba a few years ago that as a nation/community, we Canadians are adolescents, the Cubans are adults.

Peter I agree, the end of oil is the good news. It has to be, just as steeply rising cost of airfares here and airlines going out of business are good news for the air we breathe.

We live in the country, in a county with a population density of 2 people per square kilometer. There is so much land that could be farmed, and that used to be farmed, in between the rocks. Even with the world population what it is, and so much of it urban, I really think the current food 'shortages' are artificial constructions, and that with education and a change in political will everyone could be fed.

What, besides, politics, is keeping Haiti for instance from doing what Cuba did?

Haitian rice growers were unable to compete with free surplus rice from the US.

David that's the sort of thing that makes me think world hunger is a form of ritual abuse.

for me i reckon that puts cuba streets ahead of our socities.

we are facing ever increasing fuel prices and loss of habitat hence loss of rainfall and other effects, yet we aren't even planning on what we should be doing (well most aren't even thinking there is a an issue), the best we came up with was to convert food into fuel and push up the price of already expensive food.

how we face the food miles issue will be interesting, but i imgine riots could very well be a probability, need to start looking outside the square. do we need all that park land? what about all the wasted space on the tops of buildings?

our food is now grown too far away from our tables. we need to get our staples in season and as fresh as. cold/cool storage is another added cost. worth thinking about.

as an example has anyone ever seen documentries whatever of england where they have those ancient castles and mansions sited on vaste areas of manicured lawns and formal gardens, yet they import lots of their fresh foods from east africa (so called fresh), not very smart hey? we all have those areas in our countries.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

In areas like yours, Paul, I suspect the problem will be lack of population and hence lack of labor to apply to the land - perhaps a bit of a replay of the colonial problem in NA. Maybe you'll have to send out raiding parties to capture slave-labor in the over-populated parts of the northeast.

Not to down-play what the Cubans have achieved, but I think they also were lucky to have a lot of factors just right. The right population density so no labor shortages but not unbearable pressure either; a near-perfect climate; a well-established authoritarian structure to carry out an institutionalized system of horticulture; excellent soil resources, and others I'm sure. I think it fits very well into Jared Diamonds rubric of societal successes and failures based on various factors, some under concievable human control and some not.

paulns: re your May 15 post, I have been reading about Peak Oil and beyond in "The Party's Over". The writer thinks that world food productio post Peak Oil will necessarily be less than at present because ammonia-based nitrogen fertilizer won't be available. (I'm sure you know the connection -- the Haber-Bosch process need beaucoup natural gas.) Now I can manage on my little plot growing legumes in rotation. But I wonder about agriculture at large. Plant breeders in the developed world have certainly bred strains that rely on excess nitrogen.. Thoughts anyonbe? Regards, Peter.

My thought runs to manure........

But I wonder about agriculture at large. Plant breeders in the developed world have certainly bred strains that rely on excess nitrogen.. Thoughts anyonbe?

Cuba can again be used as an example. Before the Soviet supply to Cuba stopped, Cuba's agricultural sector thrived with new breeds of plants and animals which all relied heavily on these inputs. When the chemical fertilizers and grain shipments stopped, the Cubans found that these plants would not thrive in their climate and soil without them. The cattle and dairy sector crumbled because these high milk producing cows and large breed beef producing cattle couldn't handle the native grasses. They needed to be fed their grain diets, grain the Russians were no longer supplying. Cattle died off in large numbers, so the Cubans went back to breeding the "old" cattle breeds which survived well in Cuba. They don't produce as much milk and they are on the small side for beef cattle, but they are able to digest a diet of the tropical grasses in Cuba.

The rest of us would have to do the same. The strains of plants which require excessive amounts of inputs (like nitrogen) will no longer be used and we would go back to the "old" veggies. Maybe we wouldn't have giant pumpkins and monster tomatoes and ultra high yielding corn...but we would still eat.

Yes, indeedy, HG. And if we still eat, we still sheet, which is what I was getting at. Like a magic act - nitrogen!

pnbrown: excellent point! A huge technology shift is needed, however. The backyard gardener or market gardener can handle the appropriate composting, but farmers need larger amounts of the, ah, product. City sewage works often deliver a product that is rich in heavy metals. What is needed is smaller scale sewage treatment facilities. There are pilot schemes in Europe. Regards, Peter.

And a huge shift in attitude. Often though, the technology changes the perception. There is existing waterless toilet technology that could fit the bill for high-density usage, such as the incinerating or dehydrating types. The "product" could be re-hydrated in the field. Some fertilizer value would be lost, no doubt, but so much material would be availiable. Some energy would be used in the process, but far less than in the Haber process, I suspect.

Besides those tough cattle they also use a small tough breed of horse, for urban transportation and other uses.

There seems to be a trained response in Americans to downplay the Cuban food revolution rather than see it as a model - and more than that, a branch sticking out of the cliff we're falling off of.

Some say the end of the embargo would solve Cuba's food problems by once again opening the door to chemical fertilizers and pesticides and more fuel - a discouraging thought.

Pat, you said 'I suspect the problem will be lack of population and hence lack of labor to apply to the land' here. Yesterday a lady called, offering us her (willing) teenage son as a farm labourer; the boy has a new dirt bike, and she and her husband have refused to buy gas for it, @$1.39/litre or about $5.50/gallon here. That reminded me of your comment and made me smile. High-priced gas => labour for an organic farm? Win-win-win.

About humanure, the prejudice against it is huge, unless it's sold in disguised form, like Milorganite. I have reason to believe we've lost business for our market garden because I talked too enthusiastically to the wrong person about the idea of it - we don't practice it ourselves, but I think there's great potential. Since then, every now and then somebody will ask me out of the blue whether we use our own sh*t on the gardens. And the manager of a small local grocery store declined to carry our produce because of 'hygiene issues' - a comment that surprised me so much I left it at that. Luckily we have some smart local people and smart American summer residents who know what organic produce is worth and are willing to pay for it.

I don't know about converting parkland Len but rooftop growing in cities has fantastic potential. Seeds + water + vermicomposting kitchen waste is cheap. Humanure can be vermicomposted, but I'm not sure the process eliminates pathogens. I think water supply could be the weak link, as it is in urban Cuba. Rooftop cisterns?

"strains that rely on excess nitrogen" - that explains a lot.

Are those smart American summer residents also the ones with the trained response about Cuba?

Most Americans I talk to think it's terrible that we have embargoed Cuba all these years and the Cuban horticultural miracle is well-known and admired in these parts - the fact that the one caused the other is never mentioned, however. I'm the only one I know who doesn't think that the Cuban model will transfer readily to NA. Of course, few if any that I know think about those kinds of things much, let alone do anything about them.....

I hope the helper turns out to be a good worker and not surly. The opposite of the average teenager, IOW. I doubt there is a single native kid here that works summers in ag. The labor is all brazilian and a few idealistic college kids from other states or western mass.

I've been going by comments made in the past by smart people on these boards.

"the fact that the one caused the other" - the Soviet pull-out is the usual reason given, exacerbated by the embargo.

Our helper - the one with the thirsty dirt bike - worked a few hours yesterday with a smile on his face and not one complaint, digging an 8'x8', 8" deep hole out of sod-covered rock. We've had the other kind too, though.

About farm workers, you've reminded me of WWOOF - in Canada it stands for willing workers on organic farms - an amazing group of people, at least the batch we've had these past four years. They've been happy to help us out with any kind of chore, from digging an irrigation trench to cleaning the pots and pans cupboard, in exchange for room and board. We had an English-Canadian guy with a background in engineering this past week, who helped dig post holes and put in a fence, weeded a strawberry-infested asparagus patch, gave my wife lifts to work, and did dishes. We put him up, fed him well and showed him around.

Here is a link that might be useful: wwoof

I'd say the US embargo of Cuba is ultimately responsible for their having to create their food independence, because had there never been that embargo they would never have turned to Russia for trade, and Castro would simply have ran the sugar and other cash crop industries with the US as the market.