In May 2014, an open letter from well-meaning individuals surfaced urging President Obama to authorize improvements on travel, communications, and trade between America and Cuba.

Image Source: wfp.org

This letter included a call for government-endorsed aid to small farmers, cooperatives, and other private agricultural microenterprises in Cuba, a measure which poses great benefits to the two countries.

America has always pursued environmental conservation and carbon emissions reduction efforts throughout its variegated industries. A smart way for it to adopt sustainable practices in its agriculture is to learn agro-ecology from Cuban farmers.

Organic farming in Cuba

Image Source: cityfarmer.info

When the end of the Cold War dissolved Cuba’s agricultural chemical supply from the Soviet Union, nationwide farming struggled. To address this, the state deployed the country’s top soil and plant scientists, agronomists, and hydrologists to work hand-in-hand with farmers in developing agriculture without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.

As a result, the polycultural processes of agro-ecology, which utilizes nature’s cycles and systems in crop production, now dominate Cuba’s fields and plantations. Planting strategically to eliminate weeds, cultivating flowers to draw pest-repelling insects, and growing nitrogen-fixing beans to fertilize produce organically, the average Cuban farmer sees improved yields through a viable practice and a commendable carbon footprint due to independence from fossil fuel-based methods.

Mainstreaming agro-ecology in America

Image Source: agroecology.appg.org

U.S. support for Cuba’s “Campesino a campesino” or farmer-to-farmer agro-ecology training program can help both small Cuban farmers and American farming immensely. If this knowledge-dissemination model has successfully educated as many as 100,000 Cuban agricultural families in a mere decade, sufficient sponsorship and international knowledge exchange can expedite the mainstreaming of these climate rehabilitative, agro-ecological techniques in Central and North America.

To read more about Heriberto Lopez Alberola’s pro-private sector stance on U.S.-Cuba relations, visit this blog.