10:00.00.00
SUPER: 10:00:02:00 10:00:07:00
Havana, Cuba
NARRATION: 10:00:08:00 - 10:00:13:00
Havana was a city of elegance and grandeur when New York was just a clearing in the forest.
CLIP: 10:00:32:00 10:00:36:00
This is a game of about more than 100 years in Cuba.
CLIP: 10:01:38:00 - 10:01:43:00
All old people and young people like to play dominoes.
NARRATION: 10:00:50:00 10:00:57:00
Today it is Havanas remarkable fusion of African and Latin culture that catches the eye and ears.
NARRATION: 10:01:34:00 - 10:01:41:00
For all its charm, theres a less glamourous side to Havana. People here are recovering from years of incredible hardship.
SUBTITLE: 10:01:42:00 -10:01:45:00
In Cuba,
SUBTITLE: 10:01:45:00 -10:01:48:00
the common person can only get
SUBTITLE: 10:01:48:00 - 10:01:50:00
a bun for five cents.
SUBTITLE: 10:01:51:00 - 10:01:55:00
I would rather buy more with American dollars
SUBTITLE: 10:01:56:00 - 10:01:57:00
but I don't have American dollars
SUBTITLE: 10:01:58:00 - 10:02:01:00
So I must be content with this small loaf for five cents
NARRATION: 10:02:04:00 - 10:02:17:00
The toll taken on ordinary Cubans is evident in the grim ration shops found in every Havana neighborhood. Most still rely on ration books for staples such as sugar, rice, beans, and salt.
NARRATION: 10:02:19:00 - 10:02:21:00
The bad times began after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
NARRATION: 10:02:22:00 - 10:02:26:00
As many as half of Havanas families couldnt get enough to eat.
CLIP: 10:02:27:00 - 10:02:42:00
It was a very difficult period because we have a level a very good standards, and so anyway, we lost of all that. We call it here Special Period. And but it was a,...it was a big crisis that we had to face.
SUPER: 10:02:28:00 - 10:02:33:00
Roberto Perez - Biologist
NARRATION: 10:02:46:00 - 10:02:55:00
This is the story of how Havana has managed to pull itself back from the brink thanks in part to a new kind of revolution that has quite literally taken root here.
NARRATION: 10:02:55:00 - 10:03:03:00
For the first time in generations, residents are planting and harvesting food crops in every corner of their congested city.
NARRATION: 10:03:06:00 - 10:03:14:00
Its a transformation that has inspired environmentalists worldwide, and brought a spirit of enterprise to communist Cuba.
SUPER: 10:03:10:00 - 10:03:22:00
SEEDS IN THE CITY
The Greening of Havana
NARRATION: 10:03:38:00 - 10:03:46:00
Saturday night in Havana, and passions are running high as they do every time that the home team takes on arch rival Santiago.
NARATION: 10:03:56:00 - 10:04:03:00
Baseball is only one of the big city attractions that lure Cubans to Havana, home to almost a third of the country's population.
10:04:07:00 - 10:04:15:00
Though many are cynical bout the 40-year old revolution, even more are thankful that healthcare and education are better than in most countries in the region.
NARRATION: 10:04:16:00 - 10:04:19:00
Yet Cubans have paid a heavy price for their political isolation.
NARRATION: 10:04:20:00 - 10:04:26:00
In the old days, the Soviet Union helped Cuba survive the Amercian embargo by buying sugarcane at high prices.
NARRATION: 10:04:27:00 - 10:04:38:00
In exchange, half of Cubas food used to be imported from communist allies in eastern Europe. When the Berlin wall collapsed, so did Cuba's food system. There was no money for imports.
NARRATION: 10:04:38:00 - 10:04:43:00
And what local food there was couldn't be trucked into the city because of a shortage of gasoline.
NARRATION: 10:04:44:00 - 10:04:47:00
Doctors reported patients going blind from malnutrition.
CLIP: 10:04:48:11 - 10:04:49:00
So, welcome home.
NARRATION: 10:04:50:00 - 10:04:55:00
Urban farming activist Roberto Perez was a science student at the University of Havana at the time.
CLIP: 10:04:56:00 - 10:05:14:00
So some people what they did is they took their bicycles and they tried to go to the countryside nearby Havana. Tried to trade something, you know soap or rice and things like this. And all the people started to grow things on every available place so in the beginning it was a very spontaneous movement.
NARRATION: 10:05:18:00 - 10:05:27:27
Facing catastrophic food shortages, the authorities jumped on the bandwagon and threw out laws that used to ban any kind of farming in the city.
NARRATION: 10:05:31:00 - 10:05:35:00
To set an example, the Ministry of Agriculture tore up its front lawn to plant vegetables.
NARRATION: 10:05:37:00 - 10:05:44:00
Vacant land was given away to anyone who promised to grow food on it. The only problem was, few people knew how.
NARRATION: 10:05:57:00 - 10:06:09:00
The cold war has never really ended in Cuba. There are only two television channels in Cuba, both controlled by the state, so it's no accident when a program is devoted to the merits of organic mustard.
SUBTITLE: 10:06:10:00 - 10:06:21:00
We have only brought the mustard leaves.
SUBTITLE: 10:06:12:00 - 10:06:15:00
There are many ways of making mustard
SUBTITLE: 10:06:16:00 - 10:06:18:00
and also many different varieties of the plant.
NARRATION: 10:06:21:00 - 10:06:26:00
The fact is, until recently, few people new much about growing anything.
NARRATION: 10:06:27:00 - 10:06:33:00
Havana has been a bustling city for centuries. Young and old enjoy the trappings of urban life.
NARRATION: 10:06:34:00 - 10:06:37:00
Whether its exercise class or the arts.
NARRATION: 10:06:39:00 - 10:06:46:00
The magnificent opera house is older than Canada, and the national dance company has an international reputation.
CLIP: 10:06:56:00 - 10:07:11:00
Theres a whole lot of people in this city that have never had a garden in their lives, and have seen their lives very much as one of school, university, that sort of work, who are now dealing with the need to produce their own food.
CLIP: 10:07:12:00 - 10:07:23:00
Cuba is essentially a very urbanized country and theres not an enormous amount of traditional knowledge of farming.
SUPER: 10:07:12:00 - 10:07:17:00
Pamela Morgan Urban Farming Specialist
NARRATION: 10:07:27:00 - 10:07:37:00
Australian Pamela Morgan is an expert in urban agriculture. Shes living in Havana as a volunteer, running workshops on how to grow food in unpromising environments.
CLIP: 10:07:38:00 - 10:07:53:00
What we have here is an attempt to make a garden in Central Havana where there's really no space. A lot of other parts of Havana there's lots of open space but here, the only open space is where buildings have collapsed.
CLIP: 10:07:58:00 - 10:08:17:00
And we came across this site covered in rubbish and we managed to get together some groups of people to clear the site out and we've brought in a bit of soil and made some raised beds here. And what were trying to do is show that you can grow plants right in the city areas.
NARRATION: 10:08:25:00 - 10:08:31:00
Justo Torres attended a workshop on intensive horticulture, and now he's a believer in urban agriculture.
NARRATION: 10:08:33:00 - 10:08:43:00
Despite having no previous farming experience, he and his neighbours have transformed their inner city backyards by growing everything from cassava and avocados, to tomates and coffee.
NARRATION: 10:08:43:00 - 10:08:55:00
His own garden is a showcase of ingenuity with seed beds made out of old cans, car battery casings, and rubber tires. In these hard times its like growing gold.
NARRATION: 10:08:56:00 - 10:08:59:00
Justo's annual harvest is worth more than what most Cubans make in a year.
NARRATION: 10:09:02:00 - 10:09:08:00
Today hes discussing his good results with specialists from the Ministry of Agriculture and voluntary organizations
SUBTITLE: 10:09:10:00 - 10:09:11:00
No farmer
SUBTITLE: 10:09:11:00 - 10:09:14:00
wanted to use organic products at first
SUBTITLE: 10:09:15:00 - 10:09:16:00
but this farmer did
SUBTITLE: 10:09:17:00 - 01:09:19:00
He applied it
SUBTITLE: 01:09:20:00 - 01:09:22:00
And tried it
SUBTITLE: 01:09:23:00 - 01:09:26:00
And found out what works.
NARRATION: 10:09:35:00 - 10:09:43:00
Some of the visitors stay for a tour of the neighborhood. Its hardly a greenbelt, but behind these stone walls the vegetable plots are flourishing.
NARRATION: 10:09:59:00 - 10:10:03:00
At the first stop, the star attraction is an edible cactus plant
SUBTITLE: 10:10:03:00 - 10:10:05:00
I pick it up
SUBTITLE: 10:10:06:00 - 10:10:07:00
with a piece of paper and with a spoon
SUBTITLE: 10:10:07:00 - 10:10:10:00
I take off the little eyes
SUBTITLE: 10:10:10:00 -10:10:12:00
And I cut them like this into little strips
SUBTITLE: 10:10:13:00 -: 10:10:16:00
I put them in boiling water with lemon and salt.
SUBTITLE: 10:10:16:00 - 10:10:19:00
cover them
SUBTITLE: 10:10:19:00 - 10:10:23:00
And give them a minute - no more!
NARRATION: 10:10:29:00 - 10:10:35:00
At another home, the group gets a surprise. The owner tells them his garden has begun to influence his artwork
SUBTITLE: 10:10:39:00 - 10:10:42:00
It's a representation of our diet,
SUBTITLE: 10:10:42:00 - 10:10:44:00
farming, the fish of the sea,
SUBTITLE: 10:10:45:00 - 10:10:47:00
It represents work of farmers and youth.
NARRATION: 10:10:54:00 - 10:11:05:00
Today there are more than 20,000 private farmers in Havana. Some join together to form cooperatives, while others hire themselves out to work the land in front of factories and office buildings.
NARRATION: 10:11:06:00 - 10:11:10:00
Food production in the city has gone up 50 times in just five years.
NARRATION: 10:11:13:00 - 10:11:23:00
Not long ago, private enterprise of any kind was illegal in Cuba. But food shortages have forced the government to recognize the merits of a free market.
NARRATION: 10:11:25:00 - 10:11:29:00
Now financial incentives are being built into every link in Cubas food chain.
NARRATION: 10:11:30:00 - 10:11:41:00
Nation wide, more than 80 % of state livestock and vegetable farms have been turned over to those that work them. Part of their production can be sold at a profit at whatever the market will bear.
NARRATION: 10:11:44:00 - 10:11:48:00
No where are market forces more plainly at work than at the central mercado in Havana.
NARRATION: 10:11:49:00 - 10:11:54:00
After years of being empty, the stalls are once again crammed with fresh meat, fruit and vegetables,
NARRATION: 10:11:56:00 - 10:11:59:00
And an entrepreneurial spirit has returned as well.
NARRATION: 10:12:35:00 - 10:13:01:00
Evita Odalis has a key role in the new market-oriented food supply system. She used work as a government scientist. Now she runs her own casa de semilla: seed shop. Here, people in the neighborhood can also pick up tools, natural pesticides and good old fashioned advice. Most of the things for sale are provided by the Ministry of Agriculture. But Odalis sets prices, and pays herself from the profits.
SUPER: 10:13:02:00 - 10:13:06:00
Evita Odalis Seed seller
SUBTITLE: 10:13:06:00 - 10:13:08:00
We have been here seven or eight years.
SUBTITLE 10:13:08:00 - 10:13:12:00
We intend to expand to 50 stores
SUBTITLE: 10:13:13:00 - 013:18:00
in the city and in the provinces.
NARRATION: 10:13:21:00 - 10:13:40:00
Economic reforms are spreading to other parts of the economy. Using American dollars used to be a black market activity. Now it's legal - a change that has created two classes of people. Those on fixed incomes still paid in Cuban pesos have to scrounge for subsidized goods in gloomy peso department stores.
NARATION: 10:13:48:00 - 10:14:06:00
Those who can afford it, shop in shiny American dollar shops, but pay world prices. In this strange economy, the returns of a well-run backyard garden can exceed the salary of a senior bureaucrat or professional. It's enough to drive anybody back to the land.
NARRATION: 10:14:09:00 - 10:14:17:00
Jose Jimenez is a retired soldier. He's proud of his small suburban bungalow, and of a photograph showing him with a young Fidel Castro.
NARRATION: 10:14:23:00 - 10:14:35:00
Now he has an unexpected second career. Every day he bicycles to a plot of land on the outskirts of Havana. Like thousands of others, he received it from the state, in exchange for a promise that he use it to grow food.
SUBTITLE: 10:14:40:00 - 10:14:42:00
I'll see you'll later
SUBTITLE: 10:14:40:00 - 10:14:45:00
I have some comrades who have come to visit me.
SUBTITLE: 10:14:50:00 - 10:14:53:00
I sold squash for 5,700 pesos.
SUBTITLE: 10:14:54:00 - 10:14:57:00
The squash were fantastic.
SUBTITLE: 10:15:02:00 - 10:15:04:00
I use to have high blood pressure.
SUBTITLE: 10:15:04:00 - 10:15:08:00
but since I started farming I've never suffered from it.
NARRATION: 10:15:12:00 - 10:15:53:00
Soon almost all perishable vegetables eaten in Havana will be grown within the city limits. More than a million tons of milk, eggs and meat are being produced as well. And it's mostly organic. You could say Cuba has gone green by default,. It used to rely heavily on imported fertilizer and pesticides from Eastern Europe. Now it can't afford to.
NARRATION: 10:15:36:00 - 10:15:52:00
In Havana, chemical products are almost completely restricted so they don't contaminate the water supply.
It's been called the largest shift to organic farming ever attempted. And Roberto Perez is part of a new wave of Cuban scientists helping to make it happen.
CLIP: 10:15:55:00 - 10:16:09:00
In Cuba the organic movement happens by need in the sense that in many other countries of the world, people choose the organic way. So we didn't have the time to choose. It was our only chance.
NARRATION: 10:16:10:00 - 10:16:20:00
Havana's farmers do more than feed people. They also produce medicinal plants that are helping to sustain Cuba's highly repected but struggling health system.
NARRATION: 10:16:20:00 - 10:16:24:00
Pharmaceuticals are scarce and many are reserved for children
NARRATION: 10:16:26:00 - 10:16:30:00
For adults the only solution is to rely on traditional remedies.
CLIP: 10:16:31:00 - 10:16:59:00
And we pick up the traditions of the African religions and medicine mans. So you can go to the drug store, the Cuban pharmacy, and they have one shelf full of different preparations of the medicine plants, how to use it and what its for so a doctor can give you a paper - a prescription for a medicine plant too and you can go to the drug store and get it. And urban agriculture supplies that.
NARRATION: 10:17:03:00 - 10:17:13:00
The health of seniors has been particularly vulnerable during Havana's food crisis. At the Santovenia senior citizens' home, he solution was to dig up its front grounds.
NARRATION: 10:17:15:00 - 10:17:23:00
The harvest from what is really a small farm, more than 1,000 tones of vegetables a year, has helped Santovenia survive the food crisis.
NARRATION: 10:17:26:00 - 10:17:35:00
Now the residents are proud custodians of a healthy market garden; a cool oasis in one of the more densely populated parts of the city.
SUBTITLE: 10:17:36:00 - 10:17:41:00
When the weeds need to be uprooted
SUBTITLE: 10:17:36:00 - 10:17:38:00
I do it.
SUBTITLE: 10:17:38:00 - 10:17:40:00
I plant vegetables
SUBTITLE: 10:17:40:00 - 10:17:41:00
What needs to be done
SUBTITLE: 10:17:41:00 - 10:17:43:00
I do it.
NARRATION: 10:17:42:00 - 10:17:57:00
Some of the residents here took part in the revolution that overthrew the Batista dictatorship in 1959. And though the home is run by Catholic nuns, the patron saint of the garden shed is still Che Guevara.
SUPER: 10:17:59:00 - 10:18:01:00
Sister Catarina Senior Administrator
SUBTITLE: 10:18:02:00 - 10:18:04:00
It's very important,
SUBTITLE: 10:18:04:00 - 10:18:06:00
because we have seen that the elderly
SUBTITLE: 10:18:07:00 - 10:18:09:00
are happier and they enjoy helping
SUBTITLE: 10:18:09:00 - 10:18:14:00
with the production of their food,
SUBTITLE: 10:18:16:00 - 10:18:19:00
and helping others
SUBTITLE: 10:18:19:27 - 10:18:19:00
who need food as well.
NARRATION: 10:18:22:00 - 10:18:28:00
The greening of Havana has relieved pressure on the government by by making foot more plentiful and reducing malnutrition.
NARRATION: 10:18:29:00 - 10:18:34:00
The achievement has also been recognized internationally with an alternative Nobel prize and other awards.
CLIP10:18:34:00 - 10:54::00
We are on the verge of for the first time in humanity's history to face an urban world and it just makes economic sense for some of the more fragile, more nutritious, more critical sources of food to move closer to people.
SUPER: 10:18:55:00 - 10:18:45:00
Luc Mougeot International Development Research Centre
NARRATION: 10:18:55:00 - 10:19:07:00
Luc Mougeot is a scientist with International Development Research Centre. He believes that Cuba is a good example of how urban farming can help alleviate hunger especially in hard hit areas of Africa.
CLIP: 10:19:08:00 - 10:19:24:00
We see that those countries in Sub Saharan Africa that are urbanizing fastest are the least equipped to face the food needs of their growing populations. They can't afford, even afford, to import food.
CLIP: 10:19:26:00 - 10:19:37:00
But the urban agriculture when it comes in it focuses on major sources of vitamins and micronutrients, which are essential for human beings' development, particularly children.
CLIP: 10:19:40:00 - 10:19:55:00
Some lines of products in urban agriculture that are very, very profitable your main in the case of Dar El Salaam - the business of milk selling that it goes in the10s of millions of dollars per year.
NARRATION: 10:19:56:00 - 10:20:16:00
The Centre is a leading supporter of research on urban agriculture. Through a program called cities feeding people, it helps researchers in developing countries address problems relating to farming in cities. The goal is to influence policies and laws in favor of the estimated 800,000,000 city dwellers engaged in farming.
CLIP: 10:20:17:00 - 10:20:32:26
Uhmm, most of them don't do it on land that they own, so the whole issue of gaining access to whatever space and land is available in the city is central to the research that IDRC is has been supporting and will be supporting and will be supporting over the next four years.
NARRATION: 10:20:35:00 - 10:20:51:00
Urban agriculture has its advantages for rich countries too. In Toronto, Havana's success has been an inspiration for Food Share, an organization which packs and distributes food containers for 4,000 low income families in Canada's largest city.
NARRATION: 10:20:52:00 - 10:20:57:00
Some of the fresh food it grows itself on the roofs and balconies of abandoned industrial sites.
CLIP: 10:21:01:00 - 10:21:12:00
For us here in the north, we can now go and say, look: look what's happening in Cuba. Under stress and under duress they are able to figure out some new things, and we should take a lead from them. Absolutely.
CLIP: 10:21:12:00 - 10:21:34:00
One of the reasons we need to grow food in our cities, is we need to deal with compost using that compost to grow food in the city and repatriating and remediating soil that has been environmentally contaminated by industry. If we could capture that, we wouldn't need incinerators, we wouldn't need a whole variety of very, very expensive and very, very dangerous
waste reduction methods at the end.
NARRATION: 10:21:35:00 - 10:21:47:00
Despite the attention Havana's green revolution is getting from outside the country, its own future is not guaranteed. There are those in the Ministry of Agriculture who would go back to the old way of doing things.
CLIP: 10:21:48:00 - 10:21:56:00
Because they consider this agriculture, urban and organic farming, as a transition agriculture, as a crisis agriculture, as a poor people agriculture.
NARRATION: 10:21:57:00 - 10:22:05:00
Havana's capacity to captivate and charm will endure. The shape of Cuba's political future on the other hand, remains anyone's guess.
NARRATION: 10:22:06:00 - 10:22:15:00
Yet no matter who is in charge, there will be pressure to produce food at the lowest possible cost on huge mechanized farms in rural areas.
NARRATION: 10:22:16:00 - 10:22:24:00
For those who dream of a different way, cities that grow as much food as they consume, the next few years are crucial
CLIP: 10:22:27:00 - 10:22:47:00
Those few years that are coming. Time and a lot of energy to show them that this is not a step backwards that the step backwards is to go to back again to the conventional systems that never guaranteed the food, the proper food security for Cuban population.
.
Credits
Director
Richard Phinney
Producers
Richard Phinney
Steven Hunt
Editor
Steven Hunt
Narration
Becky Rynor
Camera
Richard Phinney
David Barker
Steven Hunt
Huub Ruijgrok
AV2 Foundation
Music
Steven Hunt
Production Studios
Sound Development
Communications Media
Translations
Salvador Arguello
Yolanda Elias
Meredith Lee
Louise Leroux
Roberto Miranda
Sarah Torres
Inspiration
Christina Mairin
Special Thanks
Lauren Baker
David Barker
Dr. Fernando Funes
Adriana Garcia
Mimi Edwards
Sarah Giddens
Rosa Maria Cartaya Olivares
Brenda-Lee Wilson
Naomi Wise
And the People of Havana
Produced with the financial support of the
International Development Research Centre
Knowledge in Action
Copyright 2003
SUPER: 10:00:02:00 10:00:07:00
Havana, Cuba
NARRATION: 10:00:08:00 - 10:00:13:00
Havana was a city of elegance and grandeur when New York was just a clearing in the forest.
CLIP: 10:00:32:00 10:00:36:00
This is a game of about more than 100 years in Cuba.
CLIP: 10:01:38:00 - 10:01:43:00
All old people and young people like to play dominoes.
NARRATION: 10:00:50:00 10:00:57:00
Today it is Havanas remarkable fusion of African and Latin culture that catches the eye and ears.
NARRATION: 10:01:34:00 - 10:01:41:00
For all its charm, theres a less glamourous side to Havana. People here are recovering from years of incredible hardship.
SUBTITLE: 10:01:42:00 -10:01:45:00
In Cuba,
SUBTITLE: 10:01:45:00 -10:01:48:00
the common person can only get
SUBTITLE: 10:01:48:00 - 10:01:50:00
a bun for five cents.
SUBTITLE: 10:01:51:00 - 10:01:55:00
I would rather buy more with American dollars
SUBTITLE: 10:01:56:00 - 10:01:57:00
but I don't have American dollars
SUBTITLE: 10:01:58:00 - 10:02:01:00
So I must be content with this small loaf for five cents
NARRATION: 10:02:04:00 - 10:02:17:00
The toll taken on ordinary Cubans is evident in the grim ration shops found in every Havana neighborhood. Most still rely on ration books for staples such as sugar, rice, beans, and salt.
NARRATION: 10:02:19:00 - 10:02:21:00
The bad times began after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
NARRATION: 10:02:22:00 - 10:02:26:00
As many as half of Havanas families couldnt get enough to eat.
CLIP: 10:02:27:00 - 10:02:42:00
It was a very difficult period because we have a level a very good standards, and so anyway, we lost of all that. We call it here Special Period. And but it was a,...it was a big crisis that we had to face.
SUPER: 10:02:28:00 - 10:02:33:00
Roberto Perez - Biologist
NARRATION: 10:02:46:00 - 10:02:55:00
This is the story of how Havana has managed to pull itself back from the brink thanks in part to a new kind of revolution that has quite literally taken root here.
NARRATION: 10:02:55:00 - 10:03:03:00
For the first time in generations, residents are planting and harvesting food crops in every corner of their congested city.
NARRATION: 10:03:06:00 - 10:03:14:00
Its a transformation that has inspired environmentalists worldwide, and brought a spirit of enterprise to communist Cuba.
SUPER: 10:03:10:00 - 10:03:22:00
SEEDS IN THE CITY
The Greening of Havana
NARRATION: 10:03:38:00 - 10:03:46:00
Saturday night in Havana, and passions are running high as they do every time that the home team takes on arch rival Santiago.
NARATION: 10:03:56:00 - 10:04:03:00
Baseball is only one of the big city attractions that lure Cubans to Havana, home to almost a third of the country's population.
10:04:07:00 - 10:04:15:00
Though many are cynical bout the 40-year old revolution, even more are thankful that healthcare and education are better than in most countries in the region.
NARRATION: 10:04:16:00 - 10:04:19:00
Yet Cubans have paid a heavy price for their political isolation.
NARRATION: 10:04:20:00 - 10:04:26:00
In the old days, the Soviet Union helped Cuba survive the Amercian embargo by buying sugarcane at high prices.
NARRATION: 10:04:27:00 - 10:04:38:00
In exchange, half of Cubas food used to be imported from communist allies in eastern Europe. When the Berlin wall collapsed, so did Cuba's food system. There was no money for imports.
NARRATION: 10:04:38:00 - 10:04:43:00
And what local food there was couldn't be trucked into the city because of a shortage of gasoline.
NARRATION: 10:04:44:00 - 10:04:47:00
Doctors reported patients going blind from malnutrition.
CLIP: 10:04:48:11 - 10:04:49:00
So, welcome home.
NARRATION: 10:04:50:00 - 10:04:55:00
Urban farming activist Roberto Perez was a science student at the University of Havana at the time.
CLIP: 10:04:56:00 - 10:05:14:00
So some people what they did is they took their bicycles and they tried to go to the countryside nearby Havana. Tried to trade something, you know soap or rice and things like this. And all the people started to grow things on every available place so in the beginning it was a very spontaneous movement.
NARRATION: 10:05:18:00 - 10:05:27:27
Facing catastrophic food shortages, the authorities jumped on the bandwagon and threw out laws that used to ban any kind of farming in the city.
NARRATION: 10:05:31:00 - 10:05:35:00
To set an example, the Ministry of Agriculture tore up its front lawn to plant vegetables.
NARRATION: 10:05:37:00 - 10:05:44:00
Vacant land was given away to anyone who promised to grow food on it. The only problem was, few people knew how.
NARRATION: 10:05:57:00 - 10:06:09:00
The cold war has never really ended in Cuba. There are only two television channels in Cuba, both controlled by the state, so it's no accident when a program is devoted to the merits of organic mustard.
SUBTITLE: 10:06:10:00 - 10:06:21:00
We have only brought the mustard leaves.
SUBTITLE: 10:06:12:00 - 10:06:15:00
There are many ways of making mustard
SUBTITLE: 10:06:16:00 - 10:06:18:00
and also many different varieties of the plant.
NARRATION: 10:06:21:00 - 10:06:26:00
The fact is, until recently, few people new much about growing anything.
NARRATION: 10:06:27:00 - 10:06:33:00
Havana has been a bustling city for centuries. Young and old enjoy the trappings of urban life.
NARRATION: 10:06:34:00 - 10:06:37:00
Whether its exercise class or the arts.
NARRATION: 10:06:39:00 - 10:06:46:00
The magnificent opera house is older than Canada, and the national dance company has an international reputation.
CLIP: 10:06:56:00 - 10:07:11:00
Theres a whole lot of people in this city that have never had a garden in their lives, and have seen their lives very much as one of school, university, that sort of work, who are now dealing with the need to produce their own food.
CLIP: 10:07:12:00 - 10:07:23:00
Cuba is essentially a very urbanized country and theres not an enormous amount of traditional knowledge of farming.
SUPER: 10:07:12:00 - 10:07:17:00
Pamela Morgan Urban Farming Specialist
NARRATION: 10:07:27:00 - 10:07:37:00
Australian Pamela Morgan is an expert in urban agriculture. Shes living in Havana as a volunteer, running workshops on how to grow food in unpromising environments.
CLIP: 10:07:38:00 - 10:07:53:00
What we have here is an attempt to make a garden in Central Havana where there's really no space. A lot of other parts of Havana there's lots of open space but here, the only open space is where buildings have collapsed.
CLIP: 10:07:58:00 - 10:08:17:00
And we came across this site covered in rubbish and we managed to get together some groups of people to clear the site out and we've brought in a bit of soil and made some raised beds here. And what were trying to do is show that you can grow plants right in the city areas.
NARRATION: 10:08:25:00 - 10:08:31:00
Justo Torres attended a workshop on intensive horticulture, and now he's a believer in urban agriculture.
NARRATION: 10:08:33:00 - 10:08:43:00
Despite having no previous farming experience, he and his neighbours have transformed their inner city backyards by growing everything from cassava and avocados, to tomates and coffee.
NARRATION: 10:08:43:00 - 10:08:55:00
His own garden is a showcase of ingenuity with seed beds made out of old cans, car battery casings, and rubber tires. In these hard times its like growing gold.
NARRATION: 10:08:56:00 - 10:08:59:00
Justo's annual harvest is worth more than what most Cubans make in a year.
NARRATION: 10:09:02:00 - 10:09:08:00
Today hes discussing his good results with specialists from the Ministry of Agriculture and voluntary organizations
SUBTITLE: 10:09:10:00 - 10:09:11:00
No farmer
SUBTITLE: 10:09:11:00 - 10:09:14:00
wanted to use organic products at first
SUBTITLE: 10:09:15:00 - 10:09:16:00
but this farmer did
SUBTITLE: 10:09:17:00 - 01:09:19:00
He applied it
SUBTITLE: 01:09:20:00 - 01:09:22:00
And tried it
SUBTITLE: 01:09:23:00 - 01:09:26:00
And found out what works.
NARRATION: 10:09:35:00 - 10:09:43:00
Some of the visitors stay for a tour of the neighborhood. Its hardly a greenbelt, but behind these stone walls the vegetable plots are flourishing.
NARRATION: 10:09:59:00 - 10:10:03:00
At the first stop, the star attraction is an edible cactus plant
SUBTITLE: 10:10:03:00 - 10:10:05:00
I pick it up
SUBTITLE: 10:10:06:00 - 10:10:07:00
with a piece of paper and with a spoon
SUBTITLE: 10:10:07:00 - 10:10:10:00
I take off the little eyes
SUBTITLE: 10:10:10:00 -10:10:12:00
And I cut them like this into little strips
SUBTITLE: 10:10:13:00 -: 10:10:16:00
I put them in boiling water with lemon and salt.
SUBTITLE: 10:10:16:00 - 10:10:19:00
cover them
SUBTITLE: 10:10:19:00 - 10:10:23:00
And give them a minute - no more!
NARRATION: 10:10:29:00 - 10:10:35:00
At another home, the group gets a surprise. The owner tells them his garden has begun to influence his artwork
SUBTITLE: 10:10:39:00 - 10:10:42:00
It's a representation of our diet,
SUBTITLE: 10:10:42:00 - 10:10:44:00
farming, the fish of the sea,
SUBTITLE: 10:10:45:00 - 10:10:47:00
It represents work of farmers and youth.
NARRATION: 10:10:54:00 - 10:11:05:00
Today there are more than 20,000 private farmers in Havana. Some join together to form cooperatives, while others hire themselves out to work the land in front of factories and office buildings.
NARRATION: 10:11:06:00 - 10:11:10:00
Food production in the city has gone up 50 times in just five years.
NARRATION: 10:11:13:00 - 10:11:23:00
Not long ago, private enterprise of any kind was illegal in Cuba. But food shortages have forced the government to recognize the merits of a free market.
NARRATION: 10:11:25:00 - 10:11:29:00
Now financial incentives are being built into every link in Cubas food chain.
NARRATION: 10:11:30:00 - 10:11:41:00
Nation wide, more than 80 % of state livestock and vegetable farms have been turned over to those that work them. Part of their production can be sold at a profit at whatever the market will bear.
NARRATION: 10:11:44:00 - 10:11:48:00
No where are market forces more plainly at work than at the central mercado in Havana.
NARRATION: 10:11:49:00 - 10:11:54:00
After years of being empty, the stalls are once again crammed with fresh meat, fruit and vegetables,
NARRATION: 10:11:56:00 - 10:11:59:00
And an entrepreneurial spirit has returned as well.
NARRATION: 10:12:35:00 - 10:13:01:00
Evita Odalis has a key role in the new market-oriented food supply system. She used work as a government scientist. Now she runs her own casa de semilla: seed shop. Here, people in the neighborhood can also pick up tools, natural pesticides and good old fashioned advice. Most of the things for sale are provided by the Ministry of Agriculture. But Odalis sets prices, and pays herself from the profits.
SUPER: 10:13:02:00 - 10:13:06:00
Evita Odalis Seed seller
SUBTITLE: 10:13:06:00 - 10:13:08:00
We have been here seven or eight years.
SUBTITLE 10:13:08:00 - 10:13:12:00
We intend to expand to 50 stores
SUBTITLE: 10:13:13:00 - 013:18:00
in the city and in the provinces.
NARRATION: 10:13:21:00 - 10:13:40:00
Economic reforms are spreading to other parts of the economy. Using American dollars used to be a black market activity. Now it's legal - a change that has created two classes of people. Those on fixed incomes still paid in Cuban pesos have to scrounge for subsidized goods in gloomy peso department stores.
NARATION: 10:13:48:00 - 10:14:06:00
Those who can afford it, shop in shiny American dollar shops, but pay world prices. In this strange economy, the returns of a well-run backyard garden can exceed the salary of a senior bureaucrat or professional. It's enough to drive anybody back to the land.
NARRATION: 10:14:09:00 - 10:14:17:00
Jose Jimenez is a retired soldier. He's proud of his small suburban bungalow, and of a photograph showing him with a young Fidel Castro.
NARRATION: 10:14:23:00 - 10:14:35:00
Now he has an unexpected second career. Every day he bicycles to a plot of land on the outskirts of Havana. Like thousands of others, he received it from the state, in exchange for a promise that he use it to grow food.
SUBTITLE: 10:14:40:00 - 10:14:42:00
I'll see you'll later
SUBTITLE: 10:14:40:00 - 10:14:45:00
I have some comrades who have come to visit me.
SUBTITLE: 10:14:50:00 - 10:14:53:00
I sold squash for 5,700 pesos.
SUBTITLE: 10:14:54:00 - 10:14:57:00
The squash were fantastic.
SUBTITLE: 10:15:02:00 - 10:15:04:00
I use to have high blood pressure.
SUBTITLE: 10:15:04:00 - 10:15:08:00
but since I started farming I've never suffered from it.
NARRATION: 10:15:12:00 - 10:15:53:00
Soon almost all perishable vegetables eaten in Havana will be grown within the city limits. More than a million tons of milk, eggs and meat are being produced as well. And it's mostly organic. You could say Cuba has gone green by default,. It used to rely heavily on imported fertilizer and pesticides from Eastern Europe. Now it can't afford to.
NARRATION: 10:15:36:00 - 10:15:52:00
In Havana, chemical products are almost completely restricted so they don't contaminate the water supply.
It's been called the largest shift to organic farming ever attempted. And Roberto Perez is part of a new wave of Cuban scientists helping to make it happen.
CLIP: 10:15:55:00 - 10:16:09:00
In Cuba the organic movement happens by need in the sense that in many other countries of the world, people choose the organic way. So we didn't have the time to choose. It was our only chance.
NARRATION: 10:16:10:00 - 10:16:20:00
Havana's farmers do more than feed people. They also produce medicinal plants that are helping to sustain Cuba's highly repected but struggling health system.
NARRATION: 10:16:20:00 - 10:16:24:00
Pharmaceuticals are scarce and many are reserved for children
NARRATION: 10:16:26:00 - 10:16:30:00
For adults the only solution is to rely on traditional remedies.
CLIP: 10:16:31:00 - 10:16:59:00
And we pick up the traditions of the African religions and medicine mans. So you can go to the drug store, the Cuban pharmacy, and they have one shelf full of different preparations of the medicine plants, how to use it and what its for so a doctor can give you a paper - a prescription for a medicine plant too and you can go to the drug store and get it. And urban agriculture supplies that.
NARRATION: 10:17:03:00 - 10:17:13:00
The health of seniors has been particularly vulnerable during Havana's food crisis. At the Santovenia senior citizens' home, he solution was to dig up its front grounds.
NARRATION: 10:17:15:00 - 10:17:23:00
The harvest from what is really a small farm, more than 1,000 tones of vegetables a year, has helped Santovenia survive the food crisis.
NARRATION: 10:17:26:00 - 10:17:35:00
Now the residents are proud custodians of a healthy market garden; a cool oasis in one of the more densely populated parts of the city.
SUBTITLE: 10:17:36:00 - 10:17:41:00
When the weeds need to be uprooted
SUBTITLE: 10:17:36:00 - 10:17:38:00
I do it.
SUBTITLE: 10:17:38:00 - 10:17:40:00
I plant vegetables
SUBTITLE: 10:17:40:00 - 10:17:41:00
What needs to be done
SUBTITLE: 10:17:41:00 - 10:17:43:00
I do it.
NARRATION: 10:17:42:00 - 10:17:57:00
Some of the residents here took part in the revolution that overthrew the Batista dictatorship in 1959. And though the home is run by Catholic nuns, the patron saint of the garden shed is still Che Guevara.
SUPER: 10:17:59:00 - 10:18:01:00
Sister Catarina Senior Administrator
SUBTITLE: 10:18:02:00 - 10:18:04:00
It's very important,
SUBTITLE: 10:18:04:00 - 10:18:06:00
because we have seen that the elderly
SUBTITLE: 10:18:07:00 - 10:18:09:00
are happier and they enjoy helping
SUBTITLE: 10:18:09:00 - 10:18:14:00
with the production of their food,
SUBTITLE: 10:18:16:00 - 10:18:19:00
and helping others
SUBTITLE: 10:18:19:27 - 10:18:19:00
who need food as well.
NARRATION: 10:18:22:00 - 10:18:28:00
The greening of Havana has relieved pressure on the government by by making foot more plentiful and reducing malnutrition.
NARRATION: 10:18:29:00 - 10:18:34:00
The achievement has also been recognized internationally with an alternative Nobel prize and other awards.
CLIP10:18:34:00 - 10:54::00
We are on the verge of for the first time in humanity's history to face an urban world and it just makes economic sense for some of the more fragile, more nutritious, more critical sources of food to move closer to people.
SUPER: 10:18:55:00 - 10:18:45:00
Luc Mougeot International Development Research Centre
NARRATION: 10:18:55:00 - 10:19:07:00
Luc Mougeot is a scientist with International Development Research Centre. He believes that Cuba is a good example of how urban farming can help alleviate hunger especially in hard hit areas of Africa.
CLIP: 10:19:08:00 - 10:19:24:00
We see that those countries in Sub Saharan Africa that are urbanizing fastest are the least equipped to face the food needs of their growing populations. They can't afford, even afford, to import food.
CLIP: 10:19:26:00 - 10:19:37:00
But the urban agriculture when it comes in it focuses on major sources of vitamins and micronutrients, which are essential for human beings' development, particularly children.
CLIP: 10:19:40:00 - 10:19:55:00
Some lines of products in urban agriculture that are very, very profitable your main in the case of Dar El Salaam - the business of milk selling that it goes in the10s of millions of dollars per year.
NARRATION: 10:19:56:00 - 10:20:16:00
The Centre is a leading supporter of research on urban agriculture. Through a program called cities feeding people, it helps researchers in developing countries address problems relating to farming in cities. The goal is to influence policies and laws in favor of the estimated 800,000,000 city dwellers engaged in farming.
CLIP: 10:20:17:00 - 10:20:32:26
Uhmm, most of them don't do it on land that they own, so the whole issue of gaining access to whatever space and land is available in the city is central to the research that IDRC is has been supporting and will be supporting and will be supporting over the next four years.
NARRATION: 10:20:35:00 - 10:20:51:00
Urban agriculture has its advantages for rich countries too. In Toronto, Havana's success has been an inspiration for Food Share, an organization which packs and distributes food containers for 4,000 low income families in Canada's largest city.
NARRATION: 10:20:52:00 - 10:20:57:00
Some of the fresh food it grows itself on the roofs and balconies of abandoned industrial sites.
CLIP: 10:21:01:00 - 10:21:12:00
For us here in the north, we can now go and say, look: look what's happening in Cuba. Under stress and under duress they are able to figure out some new things, and we should take a lead from them. Absolutely.
CLIP: 10:21:12:00 - 10:21:34:00
One of the reasons we need to grow food in our cities, is we need to deal with compost using that compost to grow food in the city and repatriating and remediating soil that has been environmentally contaminated by industry. If we could capture that, we wouldn't need incinerators, we wouldn't need a whole variety of very, very expensive and very, very dangerous
waste reduction methods at the end.
NARRATION: 10:21:35:00 - 10:21:47:00
Despite the attention Havana's green revolution is getting from outside the country, its own future is not guaranteed. There are those in the Ministry of Agriculture who would go back to the old way of doing things.
CLIP: 10:21:48:00 - 10:21:56:00
Because they consider this agriculture, urban and organic farming, as a transition agriculture, as a crisis agriculture, as a poor people agriculture.
NARRATION: 10:21:57:00 - 10:22:05:00
Havana's capacity to captivate and charm will endure. The shape of Cuba's political future on the other hand, remains anyone's guess.
NARRATION: 10:22:06:00 - 10:22:15:00
Yet no matter who is in charge, there will be pressure to produce food at the lowest possible cost on huge mechanized farms in rural areas.
NARRATION: 10:22:16:00 - 10:22:24:00
For those who dream of a different way, cities that grow as much food as they consume, the next few years are crucial
CLIP: 10:22:27:00 - 10:22:47:00
Those few years that are coming. Time and a lot of energy to show them that this is not a step backwards that the step backwards is to go to back again to the conventional systems that never guaranteed the food, the proper food security for Cuban population.
.
Credits
Director
Richard Phinney
Producers
Richard Phinney
Steven Hunt
Editor
Steven Hunt
Narration
Becky Rynor
Camera
Richard Phinney
David Barker
Steven Hunt
Huub Ruijgrok
AV2 Foundation
Music
Steven Hunt
Production Studios
Sound Development
Communications Media
Translations
Salvador Arguello
Yolanda Elias
Meredith Lee
Louise Leroux
Roberto Miranda
Sarah Torres
Inspiration
Christina Mairin
Special Thanks
Lauren Baker
David Barker
Dr. Fernando Funes
Adriana Garcia
Mimi Edwards
Sarah Giddens
Rosa Maria Cartaya Olivares
Brenda-Lee Wilson
Naomi Wise
And the People of Havana
Produced with the financial support of the
International Development Research Centre
Knowledge in Action
Copyright 2003