In 1991, Cuba entered what was designated as the “Special Period”. This was a time of economic crisis, precipitated mainly by the collapse of the Soviet Union which had provided Cuba large amounts of subsidized oil, food and machinery.
Cuba suddenly had to pay global market prices for oil. In response to this shock, oil imports dropped by 90 percent. This devastated the Cuban economy. Exports and imports as a whole fell by 80 percent. The Gross Domestic Product fell by 35 percent. Average nutrition levels fell from 3,050 calories per day in 1989 to 1,860 calories per day in 1993.
Cuba was forced to transform many aspects of economic life to cope with the crisis. This was especially so in the agricultural sector.
Prior to the Special Period, Cuban agriculture focused on sugar production for export to the Soviet Union. Cuba used industrial agriculture practices, applying more pesticides per acre than was used in American farming.
In response to the crisis, Cuba rapidly transformed its agricultural methods to organic farming. Within just a few years, about 85 percent of Cuban crops were grown organically. (In America, after 80 years of promoting organic agriculture, 1 percent of farmland is certified organic, and organic food products make up about 5 percent of food sales.)
Cuba also diversified crop production, grew food primarily for its domestic market, and opened farming to small scale private and cooperative farms.
The net result: Cubans ate a healthier diet. They were more self-resilient in food production. More employment, and more diverse employment, was created in the food sector. More money circulated in the local economy. Agricultural lands were healed. And the small private and cooperative sectors grew.
It was a textbook case of reverse shock doctrine. (See “El Nino, California Mega-Floods, and Reverse Shock Doctrine”). In the end, the crisis was a boon. Disaster was leveraged to introduce dramatic structural changes of a regenerative nature
As explained in our previous article, three years ago the Crisis and Transition collective did a scenario planning exercise to envision how a reverse shock doctrine strategy could leverage a California Central Valley mega-flood disaster to accelerate transition to a life-centered society.
Specifically, in our scenario, thousands of mega-flood refugees who arrive destitute in Eugene, Oregon would be set up in “Transition Communities”. We wanted to envision how these initially destitute Transition Communities could rapidly evolve into thriving models of a life-centered society.
We divided up our planning work up among several teams, each team focusing on a major arena of community life — food, housing, well-being, economy, governance, etc. Below is a highly abridged version of the food team’s report.
The dominant approach to agricultural production emphasizes cultivation of cash crops through mono-cropping, with heavy application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and using large-scale machinery. Farm products are mostly sold on global markets.
Our aim for the agricultural practices of the Transition Communities was to shift from:
mono-cropping to poly-cropping
production for global markets to production primarily for local markets
production of cash crops to production for self-reliance and to supply local agro-industries
reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides to emphasizing organic practices
use of large-scale machinery designed for mono-cropping to appropriately scaled machinery that reduces petroleum use
family or corporate farm organization to cooperative farm organization.
The Transition Communities’ agricultural model, if instituted widely, would have the following benefits:
sharp reduction in agriculture produced greenhouse gases
revitalization of depleted agricultural soils
improved ecological conditions in farm areas
increased revenue flowing through local communities
greater regional food security
revitalization of rural community life
increased nutrition and reduced chemical toxicity of produce
availability of more raw materials for agro-industries
The process of transforming the agricultural system would proceed through five phases, each building fertile conditions for the succeeding phase, much as occurs in the successional phases of forest regeneration after a wildfire. These phases would roll out over a three-to-five-year period.
When the mega-flood refugees first arrive, they will have no food. Emergency food supplies would be severely limited as tens of thousands of refugees put huge demands on emergency food availability.
So, the Transition Communities will need to become self-reliant as quickly as possible. Accessing food would be their number one concern in the first two or three months.
Here are strategies they could use to achieve food self-reliant:
Spring wild foods can be harvested.
Sea vegetables and sea food could be gathered.
Sprouts can be grown quickly from donated seeds.
Micro-greens could be quickly grown in makeshift hoop houses.
Gathered foods could be fermented, extending their availability.
Labor exchanges could be made with local farms for their stored crops.
Overwintered crops could be gleaned.
Insect foods could be grown and ready for harvest within weeks.
Crawdads, fish, frogs and birds might be caught for food.
Egg production from chickens or ducks could be quickly established.
Food donations could be solicited from shops, warehouses, and food pantries.
Coming up with food in the survival phase, if approached correctly, could begin to shift people’s values and practices in positive directions. They could begin to experience local self-reliance, learn to collaborate for their collective survival, develop new approaches to food growing, become more conscious of food’s nutritional values, and experience the health benefits of eating fresh, local, organic foods.
The survival phase would last at least until summer garden crops become available.
The goal of the second phase would be to achieve basic food self-reliance. The Transition Communities would become capable of surviving, if need be, from foods produced in their gardens.
Almost immediately upon people’s arrival, efforts would begin to prepare the ground and plant the crops.
Nearly all vegetable crops require fertile soils that are rich in minerals, mulch, moisture and micro-organisms. Immediate attention must be given to soil building. For this, the Transition Communities must mobilize to access manure, leaves, ash, sawdust, etc. to build the tilth and nutrients of their gardens’ soils.
Much labor will be needed to clear, weed, and work the ground. Efficient use of labor must be mastered quickly, and garden workers must be trained in gardening skills.
The use of garden space should be carefully planned out, using apps that can calculate how much row space is required to produce the desired amount of food for a given number of people.
In planning the use of garden space, crops should be selected that meet people’s nutritional requirements.
legumes and sunflower seeds are good sources of protein
roots (carrots, parsnips, beets), potatoes, and squash are good sources of carbohydrates
greens, brassicas, and fruiting vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, eggplants, cucumbers) are good sources of minerals, vitamins and enzymes
sunflower and pumpkin seeds are good sources of oils
Storage crops and canning crops should be grown to provide foods for the winter. Good storage and canning crops include:
dry beans
winter squash
tomatoes (for canning or drying)
cucumbers (for pickling and relishes)
cabbages (for fermenting)
carrots, beets, potatoes, and parsnips (for storing in root cellars or in the ground)
By July, gardeners should seed vegetable starts for fall-winter gardens. The winter climate in Lane County is sufficiently mild to grow 20 to 25 varieties of winter vegetables. If hoop houses are installed, winter garden production can be even more prolific. Having garden-grown fresh vegetables during winter would support people’s health and vitality.
The Transition Communities should exercise restraint in attempting animal husbandry at this stage as the care of farm animals may be more demanding than Transition Community residents can take on.
In the third phase a diverse poly-culture of useful perennial plants would get established. When established, this poly-culture would give the Transition Communities a wealth of plant-based resources to enhance self-reliance and to provide plant materials for income generating agro-industries.
Good perennial plants to establish include:
fruit trees and berries
perennial vegetables (artichokes, rhubarb, asparagus)
nut trees (chestnuts, filberts, walnuts) for food and oils
quick growing deciduous trees (willow, poplar, alder, maple) for coppicing
bamboo for construction materials
nitrogen-fixing plants (ceanothus and alder) for soil building
flowering trees and bushes that attract bees
medicinal plants
flowers for flower essences and scented oils
fiber plants (nettle and flax)
trees for pole material (fir and cedar)
herbs, bushes and trees that provide habitat for wild animals
Perennials take time to establish, so the more that can be established early, the better. However, there should be careful observation of soil conditions, sunlight, and other factors that determine where best to site perennials.
Perennials require watering care in their first years of growth. Young plants need to be protected from deer browsing. Heavy mulching is needed to suppress grass growth that competes for soil nutrients.
In this phase, efforts should also be undertaken to:
install hoop houses for winter crop production
establish composting systems
build food-processing and food-storage facilities
conduct food-growing and food preservation training
develop organic methods of pest suppression
install efficient watering systems
All of these activities require much industriousness. The Transition Communities should prioritize deploying adequate labor to develop agricultural infrastructure and food growing systems.
The more effort that is invested early on in established food growing systems, the sooner the communities can begin to enjoy an abundance of foods and plant resources. The Transition Community residents will experience the richness of the natural world, the joy of living in a rich ecosystem, and the security of food self-reliance.
The focus of the fourth phase is to develop the agricultural sector’s economic potential. This economic potential can come from two sources:
agricultural products, and
value-added goods produced in agro-industries.
Agro-industries. Some basic agro-industry products are fruit preserves, pickled vegetables, tomato-based sauces, dried fruits, herbal teas, fermented foods, nut butters, and fruit and vegetable juices.
Such agro-industry products would be produced from crops grown on local farms — both the Transition Community farms and neighboring farms.
Each Transitional Community could have a small agro-industry complex. The agro-industry enterprises should be run as cooperatives.
Farms. Commercial farms would get established in this phase having two characteristics:
they would adopt integrated farming practices, and
they would be organized as farming cooperatives.
Integrated farming seeks to create robust self-sufficiency for the local community. An integrated farm might include:
horticulture, dairy farming, animal husbandry, and floriculture
pisciculture, apiculture, and insect products
its own nursery and research programs
production of its own fertilizers, pesticides, and energy supplies
cottage industries using farm grown crops
Integrated farming would have the following benefits:
greater economic resiliency as compared with cash crop agriculture
reducing operational costs from producing farm inputs (energy, fertilizer, pesticides, nursery stock) by the farm itself
increased self-sufficiency
increased localization of the food economy
Farm cooperatives. The Transition Community farms would run as cooperatives, with member farmworkers collaborating on planning while working their respective lands. They might jointly maintain a research station, jointly provide materials for a shared bio-gas plant, collectively share use of machinery, and collaborate on marketing their products.
Each farmer member would have use rights to the land they cultivate. They would not have ownership in the traditional sense.
The farming cooperative would allocate land for use by the member farmers according to their capacity and their need. If a member does not make full use of their land, then some of it may be redistributed. If someone has a bigger family to support, they might be allocated additional acreage.
How would the farm cooperatives’ land be obtained? One way might be for some public or non-profit body to seek nearby farms in economic distress. This body, having a community investment fund, would offer to pay off the concerned farmer’s mortgage if their land could be incorporated into the Transition Community farm cooperative.
In this way, the farm family would be guaranteed continued occupancy of their home, and they would have the opportunity to become a member of the farm cooperative. Their crushing debt burden would be lifted, and they would have improved income opportunities.
As the benefits of integrated farming and farm cooperatives get demonstrated, efforts would be made to get other farmers to establish cooperative farms producing mainly for local markets and local value-added agro-industries.
If this could be done, both the local economy and the local environment would benefit. And, because of the complex set of skills needed by the farming cooperatives there would be incentives for talented people to remain in rural areas, creating greater cultural richness in rural communities.
Eventually, out of the Transitional Communities would emerge and spread a new, more abundant, more diverse, rural culture.
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