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Low-carbon food supply: the ecological geography of Cuban urban agriculture and agroecological theory

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Abstract

Urban agriculture in Cuba is often promoted as an example of how agroecological farming can overcome the need for oil-derived inputs in food production. This article examines the geographical implications of Cuba’s low-carbon urban farming based on fieldwork in five organopónicos in Pinar del Río. The article charts how energy flows, biophysical relations, and socially mediated ecological processes are spatially organised to enable large-scale urban agricultural production. To explain this production system, the literature on Cuban agroecology postulates a model of two distinct modes: agroecology versus industrial agriculture. Yet this distinction inadequately explains Cuba’s urban agriculture: production in the organopónicos rather sits across categories, at once involving agroecological, organic-industrial, and petro-industrial features. To resolve this contradiction, a more nuanced framework is developed that conceptualises production systems by means of their geographical configuration. This provides analytical clarity—and a political strategy for a low-carbon, degrowth agenda.

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Notes

  1. In attempts to replace Soviet energy imports Cuban domestic oil production increased during the 1990s, if only on a modest scale. In 2007, oil imports again increased, now arriving from Venezuela through the petro-alliance Petrocaribe.

  2. It should be noted that data on yields in Cuba are extremely difficult to assess. They are often too high, as to serve a political agenda, or too low, omitting produce sold on the black market. Energy data are likely more reliable as the infrastructure for imports and production allows for stricter centralised control.

  3. This distinction is not unique to scholars of Cuban agroecology, but has also been suggested by influential ecological historians such as Gadgil and Guha (1992).

  4. This dichotomy is variously referred to as agroecology, permaculture, sustainable, organic, or alternative agriculture versus conventional, modern, classical, Green Revolution, or industrial agriculture.

  5. GNAU, “Metodología de evaluación para Organopónicos contenida en la página 65 de los Lineamientos de la Agricultura Urbana y Suburbana para el año 2013” (henceforth, Metodología…). Evaluation guidelines distributed to the organopónicos through the Granja Urbana. Copy received from UBPC Micro-Brigadas.

  6. Interview, administrator of UBPC Micro-Brigadas (MB), 25 January 2013.

  7. Interview, administrator of Ampliación Erea (AE), 29 January 2013.

  8. Metodología….

  9. MB, 25 January 2013; administrator of El Vial (EV), 4 February 2013.

  10. AE, 29 January 2013; EV, 4 February 2013; administrator of Erea No. 1 (EN), 18 February 2013 (FN).

  11. MB, 25 January 2013; AE, 29 January 2013; EV, 4 January 2013; EN, 18 February 2013 (FN).

  12. MB, 20 February 2013; AE, 29 January 2013.

  13. Interview, worker at UBPC Micro-Brigadas, 25 January 2013.

  14. AE, 29 January 2013; EN, 18 February 2013 (FN).

  15. MB, 25 January 2013.

  16. EN, 18 February 2013 (FN).

  17. EV, 4 February 2013.

  18. EV, 4 February 2013. San Cristóbal and Bahía Honda municipalities belonged to Pinar del Río province until 2011 when they became part of the new province Artemisa.

  19. AE, 29 January 2013; EN, 18 February 2013 (FN).

  20. EV, 21 February 2013 (FN).

  21. MB, 7 February 2013.

  22. EN, 23 February 2013 (FN).

  23. EV, 24 January 2013 (FN); EN, 18 February 2013 (FN); AE, 29 January 2013.

  24. EN, 18 February 2013 (FN).

  25. MB, 7 February 2013.

  26. Interview, administrator of La Pesca (LP), 24 January 2013 (FN).

  27. EV, 4 February 2013.

  28. MB, 7 February 2013.

  29. FN, 18 February 2013.

  30. Interview, worker at Ampliación Erea, 30 January 2013 (FN).

  31. AE, 29 January 2013.

  32. MB, 22 January 2013; EV, 23 January 2013; LP, 23 January 2013; AE, 29 January 2013; EN, 18 February 2013 (FN).

  33. Metodología….

  34. AE, 29 January 2013.

  35. MB, 25 January 2013.

  36. MB, 25 January 2013.

  37. In addition, a large section of Ampliación Erea was covered with a black net that provided the canteros with shadow, making it a semi-protected (semi-protegido) organopónico.

  38. This and the following examples are from Erea No. 1 on 18 February 2013.

  39. Metodología….

  40. MB, 25 January 2013.

  41. EV, 23 January 2013.

  42. AE, 29 January 2013; EV, 4 February 2013.

  43. I am uncertain of the spelling of these brand names.

  44. EV, 4 February 2013; EV, 5 February 2013 (FN).

  45. Cantero areas: UBPC Micro-Brigadas, 2705 m2; El Vial, 10,330 m2; La Pesca, 600 m2; Ampliación Erea, 900 m2; and Erea No. 1, 2000 m2.

  46. MB, 22 January 2013; EV, 23 January 2013; AE, 29 January 2013.

  47. MB, 25 January 2013.

  48. EV, 23 January 2013.

  49. EV, 4 January 2013; FN, 11 February 2013; map from participatory mapping exercise in EV, 22 February 2013.

  50. AE, 29 January 2013.

  51. Maps from participatory mapping exercises in MB, 8 February 2013, and EV, 22 February 2013.

  52. MB, 20 February 2013.

  53. It is of course questionable whether water and biocides are supplied from within the city only because wells and reproduction centres are located there.

Abbreviations

CREEs:

Centros de Reproducción de Entomófagos y Entomopatógenos (Centres for the Reproduction of Entomophages and Entomopathogens)

FN:

Field notes

GNAU:

Grupo Nacional de Agricultura Urbana (National Urban Agriculture Group)

SEN:

Sistema Electroenergético Nacional (National Electricity System)

UBPC:

Unidad Básica de Producción Cooperativa (Basic Cooperative Production Unit)

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Acknowledgments

The Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography supported this work. Fieldwork was carried out through the Linnaeus-Palme agreement between the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, and the University of Pinar del Río. Part of the research took place at the Human Ecology Division, Lund University. I would like to thank Frank Márquez, Andrea Nardi, Richard Langlais, Raymond Bryant, the journal’s editor and anonymous reviewers for support and constructive comments at various stages of the research process.

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  1. Department of Geography, King’s College London, The Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, UK

    Gustav Cederlöf

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Cederlöf, G. Low-carbon food supply: the ecological geography of Cuban urban agriculture and agroecological theory. Agric Hum Values 33, 771–784 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-015-9659-y

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