Urban agriculture provides Cubans with food, jobs.

• Author: Herro, Alana
• Position: EYE ON EARTH - Brief article

Residents of Cuban cities grew more than 1 million tons of vegetables and spices between January and March of 2006, according to a report in Latin America Press. Peppered throughout Havana and Cuba's other urban areas are more than 35,500 hectares of small plots, high-production gardens, and container gardens that grow a variety of vegetables, spices, bananas, rice, and other crops. This small-scale, mostly organic farming has produced food for the nation and created 350,000 jobs, 20 percent of which are filled by women.

During Cuba's economic crisis in the 1990s, the state-sponsored National Urban Agriculture Program launched civilian cultivation projects across the country. The Cuban government monitors more than 4,000 urban organic plots nationwide to gauge production, soil use, and other agricultural parameters. Since the program's inception more than a decade ago, three strong hurricanes have hit Cuba, but the small size of the plots helped minimize damage to the food supply, says Adolfo...