Cuban Farm Explores Sustainability by Hand

[Judi Lynn]

By Patricia Grogg



Terraces specially designed to prevent surface runoff during the rains have been key for growing vegetables on the sloping terrain of Finca Marta in the municipality of Caimito, Artemisa province, about 20 km from Havana, Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

HAVANA, Jan 28 2021 (IPS) - Most beginnings are rocky and sometimes the obstacles seem insurmountable, before they are finally overcome. This was certainly the case for the Finca Marta, a farm in Cuba that had to begin by digging a well in search of water and with the hard-scrabble work of clearing an arid, stony and overgrown plot of land.

“It was an inhospitable environment, everything was totally abandoned,” agroecologist Fernando Funes told IPS. On Dec. 21, 2011, he and his family settled on an eight-hectare plot of land, some 20 km west of Havana, which they planned to farm against all odds.

“With Juan Machado, the local well digger who has become our shaman, we were digging for seven months, using only shovels, until at 14 metres deep we found water, more than we need. For us, this well is a metaphor for how far we are willing to go,” added Funes.

It was the solution to the main problem they faced in their decision to turn a relatively infertile, hilly plot of land without water into a productive farm, in a country whose water supply depends mainly on rainfall and where agriculture consumes about 60 percent of what is extracted from the watersheds.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2021/01/cuban-farm-explores-sustainability-hand/

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Cuba is a land filled with impressive farmers. I was amazed at the independence a farmer and his

family had achieved when I visited in 2018. They had thought of every need; even planting medicinal plants.