Organic agriculture in Cuba: The revolution goes green

Summary

Agriculture in post-revolutionary Cuba is based on large-scale, capital-intensive and labour-extensive monocultures. In order to sustain these, the island continually imported fertilizers, pesticides and diesel at subsidized prices from the former Soviet economic aid community, COMECOM. Since this collapsed in the early 1990s, Cuba has suffered from an acute shortage of raw materials. At the same time, the main sales market for Cuban agricultural production has disappeared. Given this situation, agriculture in Cuba faces multiple challenges: Firstly Cuba needs to find new customers, practically overnight. Secondly, its agricultural producers must learn to manage with the little that they themselves have. Thirdly, Cuba needs financial resources to renovate its often out-of-date production facilities.