Re: Cultivating Havana/special event

Mary Hendrickson (rusomh@showme.missouri.edu)
Mon, 26 Oct 1998 15:01:13 -0600

I second everything that Adam has written. I heard the Cultivating Havana
talk at the Community Food Security Conference that was took place this past
weekend in Pittsburgh. The talk was thoughtful and interesting and absolutely
amazing to see what the people of Havana have been able to do in the face of
crises caused by global events. This urban farming has gone on now for about
5 years and organic methods have been able to produce enough food for people
in the city. As I listened, I thought of all the vacant land in our cities
(particularly referencing Kansas City which has an amazing amount of land per
person in the metropolitan area because of sprawl) and what we could do to
take control back from agrofood corporations in producing and processing our
own food. The only disquieting thing that came out of the talk is the fact
that now Havana is having to fight to save these efforts as organic because of
land pressure from new development by multinational joint ventures within the
city and, if I understood correctly, from transnational agrofood interests.
Anyway I recommend trying to see the presentation if only to remind us of what
is possible!!!

Mary

Herban Kitchen wrote:

> Just a quick note regarding the Cultivating Havana talk posted
> recently. I was fortunate to attend the talk this week in New York City
> and it was terrific. I highly recommend it to anyone within the Madison
> area and for future cities as they continue the tour (call Food First at
> 510-654-4400 or e-mail foodfirst@igc.apc.org for more tour cities and
> dates).
>
> It is truly amazing to see what the people of Havana have been able to
> do working together to feed themselves clean healthy food, grown right
> outside their front doors - talk about fresh! Because of the trade
> blockade, they had no choice but to go organic because they lost all
> their agrichemicals. They even use oxen because they lost their access
> to petroleum and tractor parts. But out of this adversity, they now
> have developed a program that produces biological controls for pests and
> even a government sponsored program which produces medicines from plants
> (since they also lost their access to pharmaceuticals).
>
> Makes you really think sometimes that less is more.
>
> Best to all,
>
> Adam Ruderman
>
> --
> Herban Kitchen Tel. 212-627-2257
> 290 Hudson Street Fax 212-627-2513
> New York, NY 10013
>
> E-mail: info@herban.com
> http://www.Herban.com
>
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--
Mary Hendrickson, Ph.D.
Department of Rural Sociology
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
Tele: 573-882-7463
Fax: 573-882-1473






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