The BBC Two’s Future of Food recently published an article entitled ‘The vegetable gardeners of Havana’. In the article Sarah Murch explains how a major food crisis in Cuba, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, gave birth to Havana’s organoponicos, urban allotments used for growing vegetables and fruit. Today, organiponico’s produce 4 million tonnes of vegetables per year and have rendered Cuba 90% self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables.

Farmers who have perfected their cultivation skills have succeeded, with the support of the government, in forming co-operatives which have adopted affordable techniques (raised planter beds), traditional farming methods, organic composts and natural pesticides to harvest enough produce to supply the local community with a wide variety of good quality, healthy foods at low costs.

While Cuba’s successful urban farming system may not be replicable in other countries (based on the assumption that if it was, it would have been) it is an inspiring example of how the combination of citizen organization, grassroots innovation and public investment can lead to positive change.

Read Sarah Murch’s the article here