Permaculture 101: Feed The People: What Everyone Can Learn From The Cuban Oil Crisis
By Erin Gallagher
Filed Under The Big Picture |
Another day passes and the buzz about fuel prices and dwindling oil reserves hangs (along with the rush-hour traffic exhaust) in the evening air. The future of our global petroleum-based economy is a picture that not many of us want to paint, yet it is unavoidable not to ask what our lives may look like when the last drop of oil has burned.
In the US, the average person currently requires 7 barrels of oil to operate their home (heating, cooling and electricity), 9 barrels to power their vehicle and 10 to grow and transport the food they eat. Does ten barrels of oil for food sound surprising? The food industry is an extremely energy intensive process that has been expanded and commercialized to a point where industrial-sized machinery and mass production methods such as monopolized corporate farms and indiscriminate pesticide use are necessary to keep up with demand.
Fortunately, there is a country who can provide us with an image of what that the not-so-distant future without oil may look like. Cuba faced a crisis due to oil shortage with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Oil exports abruptly dropped 50% and the country lost 80% of it’s international trade economy.
Food production quickly became Cuba’s number one issue after their oil supply dwindled. Buses stopped running, factories became silent, tractors sat on the side of the road and people began to realize that food was not making the long journey from the farm to the city. People began to starve. Within a few months the average person lost 25 pounds and malnutrition in pregnant women and small children became the dominant issues for the medical community.
So people took it upon themselves to get together and convert any available open area into gardens. Flat rooftops and patios were seen as potential planting grounds and quickly were transformed into lush, edible forests. Urban agriculture began as reflex reaction to health concerns and gained momentum as economic returns increased; small scale farmers soon had created a flourishing, community-based economy to nourish themselves on. Localized food production eliminated the need for transport to the market and provided people with much fresher produce at reduced prices. The Government soon jumped on board and divided up 40% of large commercial farms to lease (as a USUFRUCT) to individuals at no cost. This created a revitalized job market, employing 140,000 people in the first year.
Without oil or natural gas, the pesticides and fertilizers previously used to keep their crops “healthy” were no longer an option. Alternative farming methods had to be developed and permacultural practice was employed to allow plants to protect each other from pests and intense sunlight as well as infusing leached, chemically laden soils with rich, compost nutrients. Oxen were employed to till soil and irrigation was done by hand. The result? Today 80% of Cuba’s agricultural production is organic; they use 21 times less chemicals on their crops than before the cessation of oil trade. In addition, tightly-knit communities have formed, the soil is balanced and fertile and people are healthier and no longer hungry.
This is a perfect example of how the permacultural model is designed to function: using energy from the sun, harvested rainwater and some small-scale infrastructure built using human energy, the environment can re-learn how to produce nutrient rich soil and healthy food with minimal input from us. Each of these products then returns energy to the land in the form of compost, micro-organisms and skilled permaculturalists. The loop is complete; energy is constantly re-cycled and no harmful waste is generated. A general rule to remember is: WASTE = FOOD = WASTE = FOOD in a closed-loop cycle.
If small scale farming is now seen as one of the most important (and well paying) employment sectors in Cuba, it makes sense why there are so many recent platforms supporting local CSA programs and small organic farms in North America and Europe. What citizens can do is support these movements, look to models that do not rely on fossil fuels to drive their economies, learn from experience and respect our environment for all it has the potential to teach us.
When that last drop of oil combusts and enters the atmosphere, will we be able to rejoice in the possibility of living a less harmful and more healthy lifestyle? Cuba has shown us it is possible-that we have the choice (and the responsibility) to obtain the appropriate tools and dig into permacultural practice with both hands. The only question is: who will have the foresight to start before we are all forced to?
To educate yourself and others about small-scale agriculture and the urban farming movement…
- Read an article about the rise of agricultural powers
- Discover “The Community Solution”, a group dedicated to learning from the Cuban oil crisis
- Get deeper into the permacultural living model by investing in these books
- Watch the documentary “The Power Of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil”
Read the previous two articles on the permacultural model:
- Permaculture 101: Designing A Sustainable Life (A General Overview)
- Permaculture 101: Go With The Flow (Rainwater Harvesting)
Posted on August 29, 2008 |
Comments
7 Responses to “Permaculture 101: Feed The People: What Everyone Can Learn From The Cuban Oil Crisis”
Leave a Reply
-
Buy eCo Products
Terrific article! I didn’t realize Cuba had suffered in this way and brought about their own new form of revolution. I hope the change over in government here in the US will give the relief we need and support us all to move in this direction preventively before we have no choice.
Unbelievable story. I too had no idea Cuba had suffered in such a way. I say, bring on the food revolution…necessity IS after all the mother of invention.
Great article Erin, thanks for being the bearer of GOOD news!
Just got back from a night out to see the kid oriented film WALL-E. On a Disney scale, the message and the images are reminders of the Cuban example in your article. Waste and excess drives the world into desperatation and collapse. Despite the creation of a techno-world, the worship of the photosynthetic process lives on. The survival of just one plant is the key to revival and the ultimate regenerative fulfillment of life in the year 2800.
Thanks for the great read Erin.
I was wondering how much time the Cubans had to prepare for the massive transition to locally produced food crops…did they have the good fortune of engaged foresight…or did the oil stop flowing suddenly.
Long live the food revolution!
First point: Most Americans are ‘air-conditioned’ where ever they go, I can hardly see them stepping out to scratch in the soil without acclimatizing for a year or more to prevent heart attacks alone!
Second point: Cuba has a climate very much suited to veggie garden survival - not so for much of the U.S.
Third point: The Cubans who faced and beat the odds in the oil dilemma had nothing to start with, they were already living in a very austere situation materially - the Americans, not so, they will have to take a huge fall downwards from eating greasy meaty McDonald’s burgers and steaks to eating cabbage, carrots, potatoes and eggs!
fourth point: Americans are used to very elaborate clothing, and very frequent changes of clothing for style’s sake, as well as frequent washing. The Cubans, not so, they wore mostly what they could make in Cuba, wore it to rags, and after the oil crisis they had the same or less and still live with it today.
Uncle B-
Yes- the permacultural process for most of us who have grown up with our needs being catered to, will have to begin at a pivotal shift in mentality and how we perceive the world. In order to place greater value on something (such as food production or transportation) that we are used to taking for granted, we must first experience an unfulfilled desire for that entity. When we live in an environment where individuals can command what they desire and get gratified almost instantaneously, this shift (for most) will not be a choice.
To shed light on your second point- how do you think the Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic have survived for thousands of years? Definitely not all, but most climates can be sustainable if you design your shelter and food production based on the strengths and weaknesses of your environment. As Cradle-To-Cradle author William McDonough recently stated, “…it has taken us 5,000 years to put wheels on our luggage…”- the possibilities of design for a future without fossil fuels is completely possible regardless of most climatic factors. If you are still a skeptic- check out the bioshelters that John and Nancy Todd built in Canada (PEI) and Cape Cod that grow food year round and recycle their own waste in temperatures that regularly reach below -45 C! http://www.vsb.cape.com/~nature/greencenter/naibioshelter
On a final note- the Cuban “special time” is certainly not one to be idealized; there were many months of starvation and suffering before the Government and the people began to work cohesively. Our hope at eCo Times is that at least a substantial number of us will be prepared, learning from studies such as Cuba so that we can sustain ourselves and teach others to do the same when the situation calls for it.
Thanks for your comments!
Great article. I don’t think this was intended as a template for precisely how we should do it in the States, but rather as an inspiration. If the Cubans can make it work (albeit after push comes to shove) with their scant resources, their is absolutely no excuse for us not to get it right. Particularly with our abundance and comparative ‘early warning.’