Eco-Farm & Garden

WATERLOO: When Cuban cancer surgeon Gilberto Fleites, 40, describes the economic crisis that forced his homeland to adopt organic agriculture and urban gardening in 1990, he uses his government's term, "special period." That's military lingo for a peace time crisis. But this set Cuba on a "special" environmental, social and a spiritual about-face that other nations should heed.

The "crisis" was the disappearance of Soviet subsidies after the 1989 collapse of the USSR and the tightening of the US embargo against Cuba that forced the people of Cuba to adopt a quasi-vegetarian diet. Until then, Cuba had a sophisticated, petroleum-dependent, agricultural infrastructure that saw 80% of its arable land producing export crops while importing 60% of its food from Soviet allies - a classic example of globalized food production. The abruptness with which they experienced the loss of cheap food and petroleum imports created a socially painful understanding of the importance of food security.

But today, the country is largely food self-sufficient, with 80% of all agricultural production being organic; that is, food is grown using no biocides, synthetic (petroleum-based) fertilizers, with low-input, soil-enhancing alternatives such as crop rotation, diversification, composting, and green manures. And quite serendipitously, Cubans noticed improvements to both their environment and to their health.

"It was an economic crisis that helped change our whole country," said Gilberto at the home of a Canadian friend. "The crisis clearly affected our food production and health." He added that the original push is unprecedented in world history.

Gilberto heads the Thoracic and Abdominal Surgery Department at Havana's National Cancer Institute. Gilberto and his wife Terese came to Canada to describe their hard-learned link between health, diet and agriculture. Their Canadian itinerary included a presentation at the Fifth Canadian Conference on International Health in Ottawa, and meetings with members of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) and with Physicians for Global Survival (the former Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - Gilberto belongs to the Cuban affiliate) and with like-minded groups such as the Waterloo Green Committee.

Gilberto's story begins with the revolution of 1959 which restructured the previously-impoverished country politically and economically under Fidel Castro. Before then, Cubans died of diseases of poverty, many of which were caused by malnutrition. The state reorganized crop production toward export crops - sugar, tobacco and coffee - while the traditional staples of beans and rice were imported from Soviet allies. Also, Cubans adapted the diet of the so-called "developed" nations. So they consumed large amounts of sugar and fat.

"We changed from ailments of misery to those of opulence, 'achieving' by the late 1980's high rates of heart attacks, cancer, stroke and obesity," Gilberto wrote in an abstract to the Ottawa Conference.

The new industrialized farming was so "developed" that Cuba had more tractors per capita than any other nation in the world. And the nation developed a sophisticated fertilizer production system. Countless small scale farmers or campesinos migrated to the cities for a "better life." But as in Canada, some people noticed evidence of soil and water degradation.

"Nature's cycles were ignored," said Gilberto. "We were practicing an artificial agriculture, so we imported petroleum, and there was a rural exodus to the cities. The campesinos were leaving their communities and the traditional ways were forgotten."

This forgetfulness exacerbated the crisis as much as their dependency upon cheap petroleum, said Gilberto. That is because "the old ways" of low-input, sustainable agriculture, such as working the land with oxen, disappeared with the campesinos.

"This (problem) produced food insecurity and it was non-sustainable. The realization of this was a spiritual thing for Cuba as well as economic. We were forced to reconsider our vision. We saw that food self-sufficiency meant the organic route."

The reforms included a radical restructuring of farm ownership. The state revived a previously successful experiment of encouraging a "free farmer's market" in which farmers could sell their own produce for profit rather than be employees of state farms. Rural families soon repopulated the countryside.

And the government encouraged what Gilberto calls "organoponics" - growing food in tanks and in intensive gardens in urban areas using a blend of soil with compost, worms and other traditional means of building humus levels. This permits fresh food to be grown in urban areas, so that by 1998, 20,000 people in Havana City alone grew 100,000 tonnes of food.

This urban gardening, along with the free markets and the long-time state food card provide the bulk of Cubans' food.

The use of biocides declined from 900,000 tonnes in 1987 to 100,000 tonnes in 1997, most of which goes to export crops (especially cane sugar) and to their limited potato production. This usage continues to decline, added Gilberto.

The resulting improvement in human health became evident. Gilberto said that the increased levels of exercise from walking and doing manual work in lieu of driving cars and tractors reduced the number of heart attacks and strokes. Much of this is because exercise can reverse heart disease. By 1995, diabetes also came under control, since that too, is largely a lifestyle disease, said Gilberto. The rate of new cancers has also declined somewhat because some cancer-causing compounds such as organochlorines (a component of most biocides) were no longer entering the food chain. And they retained previous markers of good development, such as sporting one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates (7.2/1,000), and a long life expectancy (74 years for men).

The death rate of such diseases of affluence has not yet dropped, said Gilberto, largely because the US embargo created shortages of medication and surgical equipment. (This is despite the fact that Cuba has one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita in the world). And no one can negate the social pain and hunger of the abruptness of the "special period" in its first two years before the re-visioning took effect. "That period was very stressful and very beautiful at the same time," said Gilberto.

Much work remains to be done, said Gilberto. Many denizens still need some lifestyle re-education work to escape the national craving for sugar and animal fat: the surgeon joked that some Cuban men think that the four food groups of health are meat, tobacco, alcohol and sugar. He proposes a plant-based diet, obtained through their existing, sustainable agriculture practices, in order to achieve human and planetary health. Gilberto himself has been a vegetarian for four years and exudes a charismatic level of spiritual and physical health.

"Global survival depends upon what we eat," he said, grinning.

Ergo, the National Cancer Institute created a Committee on Diet and Cancer in 1996. In partnership with the Cuban chapter of the International Physicians Against Nuclear War, it developed an extensive educational campaign of lifestyle handouts, talks, conference papers, and a video on lifestyle and health issues. Gilberto spent part of his Canadian trip deepening links with his counterparts in order to expand such work.

Gilberto will share his thoughts on these matters with interested folks. Use E-mail, as it takes two months for letters to travel between Canada and Cuba. His E-mail address is inor@infomed.sld.cu

Editor's Note: Dr. Fleites passed on our chapter's address to a representative from CAPE in order to see whether the two groups can do joint advocacy work in Canada. We gave this information to national president Mary Alice Johnson. Please see her "President's Address" in the next issue of Eco-Farm & Garden.