Sustainable Agriculture & Food Security in an Era of Oil Scarcity

Author Julia Wright

Examination of Cuban agricultural experience since the Special Period. As Cuba seeks to avoid dependency on imported food goods and promote urban agriculture, can it provide a model for a post-petroleum food system?

Publisher: Routledge | ISBN no: 041-550-7340 | Year: 2008

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Julia Wright is deputy director of the Centre for Agroecology and Food Security at Coventry University, and has over 25 years of experience in applied research in sustainable agriculture. In the early 1990s she learnt of the situation in Cuba following the loss of imports with the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc, and the impact on food availability and farming practices. Her book undertakes the difficult task of describing and explaining Cuban agricultural experiences from then until now, with a final chapter on Cuba’s successes and challenges in meeting its food security goals. 

The book asks ‘Can Cuba provide a model for a post-petroleum food system?’ and covers the historical context of Cuban agriculture, the rise of urban agriculture in the 1990s, and the different approaches in the whole country, including the rural agricultural systems, a topic not well covered in the past by writers on agricultural developments in Cuba. The book deals with the move away from dependency on imported food to a greater self reliance, and the contributions made by individual behaviour and public policy and practices including land reform and investment in research. Through a mixture of measures, a nation-threatening crisis was turned around. The country became more self reliant on food and an equitable food distribution was maintained. 

Wright challenges the mainstream globalised and privatised food systems and food security strategies that are being driven through both western and developing countries. She also explains that a lack of fuel and agrochemicals does not mean that Cuba’s agriculture is 100% organic, as was often stated in articles written by visitors, from their experiences in Havana in the 1990s. The Cuban interpretation of organic agriculture was not one of the avoidance of agrochemicals or on market returns, but on improvements to the production systems based on ecological principles, for increased yields. Wright describes how those working in the sector acknowledged that agrochemicals are used when necessary, and that all available petrol, fertiliser and pesticide inputs are distributed for maximum benefit.  

The book ends by looking at the implications of the Cuban experience for global agriculture and food security, and concludes that with firm political commitment to prioritise basic food rights, the Millennium Development goal of halving the number of food insecure people by 2015 is possible. Wright recognises that non-socialist countries may not be sympathetic to the initiatives taken to ensure equity, but that Cuba has shown that the measures taken are viable and arguably necessary as a means of assuring food for all in times of vulnerability. 

The book is extensively researched, based on the author’s doctorate, with useful tables, charts and graphs. Occasionally some of the terms prove confusing, but this is dealt with by the comprehensive list of acronyms, a glossary and translations. Extensive references are included making the book useful to the specialist as well as the general reader.

Wendy Emmett