The Cuba Equation: Can an Island be an Island in Today's Economy?

Every urban agriculture enthusiast has derived a bit of that optimism from Cuba. Granted, the government leaves much to be desired, but what has happened in regards to food production is nothing short of amazing. Pre-1980s/90s, Cuba had some of the finest agricultural machinery available in the world, right in line with communist theory- that agricultural equipment was what saved the peasants from hard day labor and allowed them to do more academic and socialist activities that would put everyone at more or less the same class level. But then in the early 1990s when Cuba had no support left from the fallen Eastern bloc nations and the US enacted a rigid embargo on goods from Cuba, Cuba practically drowned in its isolation. As Bill McKibben writes in the Cuba Diet, Cuba became a real island..."not just surrounded by water, but something much more rare: an island outside the international economic system," in which everyone waited for its collapse. Which, in some ways, it did. Without oil, infrastructure collapsed. Without tools, entire industries and markets collapsed. Without food, the elder and weak collapsed. And that seems to be around teh point in time (mid 1990s), that innovation began taking place. People began to produce food on whatever land they could. They consulted the hungry elders on how to grow things and produced food on top of buildings, inside apartment buildings, and effectively staved off mass starvation and death. Today, over 115,000 people are employed by the metropolitian farming system.

While most Cubans still feel unfairly treated and cut-off from the world, their food system seems to be the most ecologically undisruptive in the world. When free trade hits Cuba, no one knows if it will keep its roots or turn the way of the world in industrialization (all over again...what lessons would be learned?!) of food. Maybe, in the face of oil shortages and environmental/social/economic damage done and attributed to malpractice in agribusiness in the developed world we could learn a little something from Cuba.

Insight into Industrial/ Export Agriculture and CAFTA

--Poor Farmers Starve, Rich Landowners Who Don't Even Farm Get $1.3 BILLION in Subsidies--

Between 2001 and 2006, the US government handed out nearly $100 BILLION in crop subsidies to farmers, more than $17 billion annually (US Department of Agriculture, 2007), required by the Farm Bill, which has evolved in a questionable manner since its inception in FDR's New Deal. Sounds like a wonderful plan and a lot of money going towards farmers, huh? Funny that just the opposite has occured (perfect example of how the Bush administration can disillusion the public: similar example: make a law allowing even more pollution to enter the atmosphere and name it the "Clean Air Act"). When this law requiring the federal government to subsidize agriculture was passed by the New Deal in the 1930s, there were several million small farms in the US and the majority of the population lived and worked on those farms that produced food for the nation and an income. Today, the small farm has all but gone extinct and the 150,000 farms that exist account for nearly 3/4 of farm sales, only 2% of the USA population still living on farms (US Census, 2005). In 75 years, the USDA has been bought out by completely by corporate food producers: large corporate farms get the largest portion of subsidy money, despite their already financial robustness and their reluctance to pay fair wages to immigrant laborers and their increasing reliance on mechanical labor. Small farmers get next to nothing, have an actual relationship with the land and how to farm, and have a hard time paying their property taxes and are eventually bought out by the agribusinesses that have monopolized the entire countryside.

Now, this should but rarely does make the domestic farmer pissed off and up in arms with agricultural policy (for Goddess knows what reason---but I think we can probably blame the right wing press that fattens rural America with its news and then turns around and feeds rural America to corporate America...Sigh...Let it Come to An End, Please!) But it DEFINATELY makes the international farm community angry!

Here in Central America, after DR-CAFTA (Dominican Republic and Central Amerian Free Trade Agreement) was passed, farmers started to realize what a bad idea it was to open their markets to international consumers: they're prices and crops are simultaneously devalued and over produced. Subsidies within rich countries like the USA have made producing certain crops more expensive than not producing anything at all (quite different from the situation in the STates, where even people who live on fallow farms get paid half a million dollars/decade--for not doing ANYTHING...read the Washington Post series on AG subsidies, Sundays, July 2-December 28, 2006). Farmers in the US, on average, recieve around $21,000/yearly to produce crops such as corn, soy, wheat and rice. Farmers in poor countries who were sold on the idea of CAFTA because they believed they would have more consumers for their product, recieve little or no subsidy money and couldn't even sell it at cost. Mexican peasants have formed the EZLN and have brought international attention to the injustice of NAFTA. The situation in Africa is even worse.

Despite the prices not having anything to do with supply and demand, farmers are compelled both in the global south and in the US to continue to produce as much as possible, using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and soil-compacting heavy machinery, all of which have had a huge impact on the environment--again, globally and in the US.

I hope this sheds a little light onto the darkness that is industrialization and corporatization of our most basic need as humans: food. I hope this also gives the reader some idea of why A Call to Farms was started and what its future mission is: to continue implementing community food projects in the name of cultural and food sovereignty, strengthening local economies rather than greedy multinational companies, and to have a good time playing in the dirt while we begin to understand how much work it takes to feed ourselves sustainably, in fairness to our own health as well as the earth.

Thanks for reading! Any suggestions or confusion, please say so! I know I get carried away in my debate and have no problem providing source information or clarifying what I mean!

Absolutely Perfect Next Step!

After haggling for the mayor and municipalities support (in order to apply for certain grants) for two weeks, daily and with nonstop optimism...being told to come back tomorrow a hundred times...I finally found someone to help me bypass them!

Let me backtrack: the municipality (here we just call it "la muni") promised a piece of land to me about two weeks ago, when I presented the project to them. They were 12 men, sitting in a half circle around me, laughing at me and talking in Tzutujil (the indigenous language) the entire time, but did I care? F-No! I got land! They can laugh all they want....And they did...when I returned the following day and the following day and the following day when they told me "manana, manana, manana"....Each day when I shut the door to their office after being told "tomorrow" again, I heard them laughing and it boiled my blood. Not good for the little egg inside :) I was feeling super defeated and my small room has turned into a greenhouse with plants going nowhere....

But! Today I did a second round on all the people/businesses/schools I had given a printed proposal to about a week ago and found that the director (a woman! YAY!) of the largest public school in town (a bit out of town, actually) was really excited and upset that I had left no contact information (no cell phone yet) on the flyer. She immediately agreed to the plan and gave me free reign over a large tract of land--even during the next two months when the kids aren't in school (they have two months "vacation," which is actually when they go to work with their parents). So not only do I have land, I have land on which to work unsupervised for the next two months! I have still to work on the design of the lot, consult with the permaculture institute nearby and start up the informative newsletter that will accompany the project!!

As far as design goes, so far I have a definate plan (and seeds) for only two beds. The first is a native species which includes medicinals such as cataria and mint and aloe as well as edibles such as chipilin and hierba buena. The internship with the permaculture institute helped me to learn alot about native species-their uses and significance both environmentally and socially. For example, because they are native to the region, they have survived on their own, they are low-maintenance plants. They're integral to the landscape and serve a purpose to the native environment (are either a vital link in the native food chain or serve as habitat for something else that is) plus they don't need any inputs such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides or water.

A number of native species have all but disappear from the table and homes of the Tzutujil people through the industrialization and globalization of food and fodder, which is a sad occurence. Perfect example is amarynth, an important flowering grass that has thrived here for..ever, was burned in large quantities when the Spanish conquistadors arrived to what is now Guatemala in the mid 1500s. They called it a weed and the people who ate it, filthy savages. In reality, the plant contains vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin B6, vitamin C, riboflavin, and folate, and dietary minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper, and manganese and the Maya of this region were very smart to have been using it to make their tortillas from. The plant is used around the world for a grain, a vegetable, a dying component and as an ornamental...I'm guessing that the Spanish knew its potency and also figured that by debasing the food, they could debase the culture and own the people...

For some reason, multinational companies such as Wal-Mart and Procter and Gamble have been just as convincing these past few decades that there product is better than the one in the backyard and many people have run to the store, while their land is taken and developed into producing mass quantities of other things for that same greedy global market. The goal of the native garden is to re-emphasize the importance and utilization of the very plants that have sustained this lifestyle and culture for millinia.

The other bed I have already aquired seeds for will be planted with foods used in the school lunchs--common foods eaten here such as types of squash, root vegetables, corn and beans (of course!) The idea here is to offset the costs of the school having to purchase the foods and also for the kids to understand how to grow the foods themselves and possibly begin home gardens (especially when we go into our container gardening segment!)

Thanks for reading this quick update!
Emiy

Paypal Account Info

In order to donate money, you need to do the following:

Go to Paypal.com, Click on add Funds
The key to adding to my account is my email, which is
emily.zielke@gmail.com

Thanks alot and let me know if you have any questions!

I HAVE PAYPAL! Okay, people, I have done the hard part of asking for donations...please help and donate!

Here are three options:
1. Sponsor one student at $17. I'll keep track of this student's progress/lot in the garden and send you pictures, quotes, random tidbits monthly.
2. Purchase a newsletter subscription! At $25 for three months I will provide you with a pretty newsletter with all the stuff you need to know about good food and bad agribusiness and all things related to revolutions!
3. At $100, me love you long time. At this level of funding, I will send you a newsletter or two, photos of the garden project and updates as often as I make them. If you're giving this much, you're allowing this project to continue operating--I've found volunteer translaters, but still looking to give some money to the local tour guides who can teach about native plants and how to seed them, etc. Also, the internet and printing costs will be covered with your money.


Thanks so much! LEt me know who is interested in donating and at what level!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR READING!!

Great New Update!

After a very unsuccessful attempt at getting cooperation from the school (the director is not too happy to deal with a woman unless he's in completely charge), I marched straight to the Mayor's office. And I waited for the mayor! I finally got to speak with him, explain the entire project and reasoning behind Huertos Escolares (School Gardens) and he is donating a piece of land (albeit small and far) for the project! Granted, I got the meeting because I'm a cute gringa...but I'll take it while I can (which...at 5.5 months pregnant won't be long)!

This brings so much more freedom to the farm to school program and the class can take FIELD TRIPS to the farm! I'm so excited to start transplanting what I've already started growing, which is two types of Squash, two types of tomatoes, amaranth, pole beans, some local strands of cabbage and sunflowers! YES! I've never started a garden from nothing before...any tips are welcomed! I will be consulting the permaculture institute nearby before doing anything!

I cannot put into words how happy I am about this small victory. Screw it, LARGE victory! By the way, if you think a successful meeting with the mayor of a town of less than 20,000 people is not a big deal--look who's running for VP of the United States! Ha!

Proyecto Huertos Escolares/ School Garden Project: Lago Atitlan, Guatemala

In this first entry, I'll be brief as possible and introduce myself and my current project.

Me first: My name is Emily Zielke. I'm a recent graduate of a double MA program at American University (Natural Resource Management/ Sustainability and International Development) and in studying for those two masters degrees, I learned alot about my own personal strengths....which are, to say the least, not inside a classroom. I prefer and excel at working at the grassroots level, where I am constantly learning and facing challenges.

Learning and facing challenges has long been my favorite thing in life, in fact if there are no challenges ahead of me, I tend to create them! Out of this bad habit came lots of trials (yes, even the court-kind) and tribulations, but over time, I've learned to pick my battles more inteligently and those that may come with solutions. Some of my most inspirational and important experiences have been volunteering and working with "at risk" innercity kids in Chicago, working with sustainable and natural building professionals, an internship at a permaculture institute and spending time amoung the Maya of Guatemala.


Currently, I'm working on building farm to school linkages at the public school here in San Pedro la Laguna, Guatemala for many reasons. To grow food at and for the school will save the school much-needed money. By law in Guatemala, each primary school that holds kids in classes for over 5 hours must serve them some sort of snack or lunch. Unfortunately, the kids in this school get a small snack only a couple days a week, usually Kellogg's brand Corn Flakes and milk, which comes in powdered form and is mixed with store-bought water. These young kids are a major contributor of the household and plantation work done by each family to earn wages. If they aren't at school, they're working hard and have barely the amount of nutrition needed for a kid who sits in front of the television all evening, let alone one hauling wood and buckets of coffee beans or other produce for export.

This particular area is breathtakingly beautiful and rich in natural resources. Unfortunately, 50 years of civil war (backed by the CIA—and if you think this is some kind of conspiracy theory, please read any book on the subject published after the 1970s or better yet, go straight to the CIA website and read the admission-justification for supporting ethnic cleansing here in Guatemala and also in Nicaragua put those natural resources in the wrong hands. The Maya have lived in this area for thousands of years and experienced many hardships, from natural disasters and conflicts with indigenous groups , but most of the damage has been violence and oppression by foreign exploitation. When multinational financing agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund began encouraging and selling the idea that countries who lived primarily at subsistence-level should start exporting their raw materials to the US and European countries in order to lift themselves out of poverty, the exact opposite occurred. Several countries were just beginning to work in a democratic manner, electing leadership through popular vote, when these international agencies promoting global free markets saw that their primary pushers' interests were at stake and intervened…sometimes violently. In Guatemala, that happened in 1954. United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) was the largest landowner in all of Central America. Several of its acreage was not being used and the fairly elected president began pushing legislation that required that land be bought by the government and redistributed to the people who lived there previously (UFC was able to purchase it cheaply and easily as there had been no land titling system before—there was no need for one when the indigenous groups farmed it communally). The CIA backed a coup that overthrew the reformist president and implemented one that led to 40 years of murder and pillage of indigenous people, their land, their lifestyle, their culture and their food, all in the name of a free-market economy in which only the rich have benefitted. Unfortunately that same export and free market plan to reduce poverty is still in effect and areas that could be producing food for families is producing coffee and other luxury items for export although the prices are always dropping. After seeing the first hand effects, I know why the US and western right wingers are the only ones who still support it.

The two degrees which I recently obtained from American University (Natural Resource Management and International Development) focused primarily on economic and environmental policies and on the sweeping movements which have led to our current disastrous situation. I decided to start with small local movements. No one solution works everywhere and having already spent some time working here in Guatemala on an internship last year I decided to work on a few of the issues I learned about:

1. 1. The ill-advised missions to globalize the community. Increasingly you see Coca-Cola and other processed packaged foods among the younger generation. This is a lot more harmful than it sounds for a community that has rarely had to deal with non-organic garbage and does not yet have a waste disposal or treatment plan. The imported garbage, ahem…foods usually end up in Lake Atitlan…which has lost 25 feet of visibility in the last 10 years. These kinds of foods and items have been introduced through the Evangelical missionaries that have been sending missions here for decades (now including teenage missionaries that are flashy with their I-pods, fancy cars and lots of money), as well as tourism, both domestic and international. I myself do not have the ability to stop missionaries or tourism, but I do think that they can have a positive impact (at least the conventional tourists—the Evangelicals are known to proclaim that they are "saving" these backwards people). We can have a positive impact by teaching the mistakes OUR societies have learned in industrialization (farmers not valued enough, dead zone in Gulf caused by agrochemicals, monocultures that have destroyed several ecosystems and put species on the endangered and exist list, etc) and by participating in empowering events, such as my ecology project! The project's main focus is the native-species garden, which is/will be taught in part by local elders. Tzutujil elders know nearly everything there is to know about the natural world in this region and according to them, the world was (and still is, in some areas) teeming with medicine, nourishment and other fodder that should be chosen over multinational pharmaceutical and food companies.

2. 2. Subsistence farmers think they can no longer farm for their own families because they don't have land and were forced into urban areas (also, if you think ´force´ is too harsh a word, please read ANYTHING on urbanization—know that these people and the majority of the poor in urban areas today do NOT wish to be there). But that skepticism simply isn't true: Havana, Cuba has shown us that urban areas can produce food. 90% of Havana's residents eat food that they have grown themselves. Cuba's situation came about when it was cut off from the world supply of agricultural machinery, biotechnology and world markets. Now is this generations chance to make the switch to sustainable lifestyles through food BEFORE catastrophe hits. There have been very successful and far-reaching urban garden projects in Hong Kong, Moscow, LA, NYC, and Portland. Container gardens, such as this small one we are doing in the school, are a great way to start. And materials (tires, large buckets which cement powder is delivered in, any old makeshift container) come easy and save landfill space.

3. 3. Malnourished children. It simply isn't right to see such skinny, hard-working children eating chips and drinking pop. It is heartbreaking and no matter the politics and economics behind it, no one should stand by and watch. This is my little chance to feed people, because I love people and my family taught me that if you love someone, you put good food in their mouth…

Well..... this is the story of what I'm doing and why I am that person in your life…friend or family member…sending mass emails to everyone they know, asking for money to support their cause. I totally understand every negation, just thought I should try this one avenue (of course, I'm also applying for several grants). Everyone that I know and admire for self-started projects have also had to do this...it´s hard to ask for money from the people you know, much harder than asking for money from foundations (which I am ALSO doing and have earned one small grant already, specifically for introducing ecology courses to the school).

Please send this to anyone you think may be interested or could donate: university students studying sustainable development, international travelers or development workers, gardeners that may have ideas to share, rich people with so much money they don't know what to do with it….(I don't think anyone I know is closely tied to these people…just a thought) I need time and work donations, too!

Money is needed for the following reasons, if you feel stronger about one avenue than another, do say so and I'll make sure that your money goes to what you want it to as well as photographs and brief updates on that particular area of the project.

· Media Outreach: As I search for volunteers and materials, I spend about two hours on the internet a day and also have to print numerous documents to post around town. This has gotten to be one of my primary costs. I've also started writing a newsletter focused loosely around the project and the importance of food and native species, in general. I would like to distribute these to a wider audience and will hopefully in the future have local advertisers to help pay for printing and volunteer writer/photographer/artist/cartoonist contributions.

· Labor: I would like to give a stipend to two local people who are contributing their time and knowledge in the classroom and in the garden. I'm also looking for someone to translate documents (to Spanish AND Tzutujil) that would be useful in explaining the project to local nonprofits and organizations that may want to cooperate or sponsor the project.

· Tools: I have enough tools for myself but would like to provide the school with some additional tools (4-5 small handheld shovels, 30 pairs gardening gloves, for the students to work together when I or any other supervisor is not around. Part of the magic of gardening is discussing your own personal lessons and comparing it to what others think, know, have learned.

· Art Supplies: A side project of this one is to make the school garden fun for the kids and to intertwine the students artwork with the beauty of nature and growing life. Tzutujil art is beautiful and rare and has all but vanished from the school and homes, as they focus heavily on Western science and math. Bringing art into schools can rejuvenate excitement about learning. Examples of some projects I have in mind are painting the containers (first up, those ugly decrepit tires), dying materials with dye plants and flowers native to the area, and artful constructions to place in gardens (would really like to use only garbage to emphasize reusing/recycle ideology, so hopefully this one is costless), and anything else the kids come up with.

Thanks for reading everyone. I wish I could offer some kind of support to you, instead of just asking for a donation. If I can do anything for you or in exchange, please let me know! If you disagree with my projects and point above and would like to talk to me about anything, please do that as well. I´m open and ready to hear other sides.

Also, please consider visiting and volunteer work as a donation-vacation as well!! In mid-month December 2008, I am holding a fundraiser at a VERY popular local bar/restaurant (ask Google: Buddha Bar, San Pedro la Laguna, Guatemala) and will be auctioning stuff, there will be music (2 acts-one blues and one solo acoustic guitar/singer) and for purchasing an entry ticket, a complimentary package of random herbs (some medicinal, some for cooking). It's a long way to go for a party, but totally worth it! Consider it!

Since I have no way of collecting money that may be donated to the project, please just write me back and tell me a pledge amount, preference for area to put the money towards and together, we can figure out a way to get it to me here. I have contacts in Washington and also in my family that have access to my banking account and information. Or, I have recently set up a PayPal account and can also accept donations this way.

I will continue sending updates, newsletters and achievements of the project. Please help, if you can. If you can´t, do not worry! I have faith that where there is a will there is a way. And in this case, there is a will and a necessity, so things will surely take off soon!

I welcome letters, postcards, information on similar projects but PLEASE do not send money to the following snail mail address.

Emily Zielke "Proyecto Huertos Escolares"

Lista de Correos

San Pedro la Laguna 07018

Solola Guatemala

Centroamerica