Cubans take up organic production

摘要

When Cuba's sugar harvest failed twenty years ago, FideS Castro called it Venceremos, the year of victory, saying that from such failure they would learn to succeed. Now a new economic crisis is forcing Cuban farmers to turn to alternative - organic -solutions. Simon Wright reports. Financially Cuba is in a bad way. Since 1989 Cuba has lost almost all its Warsaw pact trading partner s, who used to account for 85 per cent of exports. To compensate for this, in 1990 Castro announced the beginning of aspecial period during peacetime designed to reverse the country's economic down-turn by encouraging the island to become self-sufficient in food,. Since Cuba is unable to afford imported fertilisers, herbicides or pesticides this means that much of theagriculture on the island now uses organic farming techniques ie 'passive' organic farming. Many such techniques have been developed at INCA (Institute Nacional de Ciencias Agricolas) a research association on the outskirts of Havana which employs 450 workers, INCA's function is to carry out research into crop plants of economic significance to Cuba. These include sugar cane, citrus fruits; rice, bananas, coffee, tomatoes, potatoes, cacao, legumes and grasslands. There is an entire department devoted tosustainable agriculture, plus other departments which investigate bio-fertilisation and crop rotation. Current projects include developing four new varieties of potato specifically designed to grow in Cuban habitats without the need for artificial inputs.