Cuba Organic Support Group

Roberto Perez visits UK

Roberto Perez of the Fundacion Naturaleza y el Hombre in Havana visited the UK in September 2008. The visit was organised by the Permaculture Association in conjunction with Garden Organic, and COSG made a substantial financial contribution. Roberto has become well known in this country by people who have seen the DVD “The Power of Community”, which deals with how Cuba survived the loss of oil and oil based products when the Soviet Union collapsed. The film has been seen extensively all over the country, and Roberto features quite prominently in it.

In September he took part in meetings and other events, and in some cases the film was shown in conjunction with his presentation. His easy style, excellent command of English and extensive knowledge of his subject matter meant that he was very well received wherever he went. He was able to answer questions about the organic programmes and projects in Cuba, as well as the political situation, and he was very keen to encourage locally based community gardens in this country. When he left at the end of the month he must have spoken to well over a thousand people, and was tired but happy with how he had been received.

Study Tour to Cuba 2008

In November 2008 COSG, in conjunction with the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, organised a study tour to Cuba. The tour was led by Wendy Emmett, co-ordinator of COSG, and was made up of 14 people ranging in age from 22 to 73. Several of the participants were professional gardeners or worked in related and sustainable development areas.

We stayed in Havana, Trinidad and Santa Clara, and visited a wide range of projects including organoponicos, medicinal plant production units, the community food project at Marianao, and various university departments and research institutes. There were also visits to an ecological research station, and a naturalist-guided walk in the mountains close to Trinidad, where the Cuban national bird, the trogon, was spotted several times. At the scale model of Havana situated in Miramar we learned how planning decisions are made in the city, and from a high roof top up above Havana we discovered how an NGO, Cubasolar, are promoting the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency in the country.

After the devastating hurricanes of September and October 2008, the initial most obvious impact that we encountered was the shortage of fruit and vegetables in the markets. There were plenty of root vegetables, but long queues for anything else, and the damage was clear once we got into the countryside, where tree and crop destruction was evident in some places. In the Escambray mountains, close to Trinidad, the group visited the agricultural university, and discovered that during the hurricane alerts the whole community sheltered in the university lecture halls and labs, and this included the horses, goats, pigs and other livestock!

The organoponicos, each with their own point of sale kiosks, impressed the group. One of the first ones we visited was the famous (thanks to Monty Don) Organoponico Vivero at Alamar, where we saw an impressive range of vegetables and fruit being grown, a variety of propagation methods and a really good community feel to the place. The Organoponico Riviera in Santa Clara is smaller but equally impressive. There we were shown the beds which had been restored after the hurricane damage, by gangs of volunteer workers from nearby factories, and they were back to full production. The director impressed us by explaining how the noni fruit, which we had seen in lots of other places, is prepared and used to combat high cholesterol.

Our last day was packed with visits, including to the research institute where Humberto Labrada (who visited UK in 2007) works; everyone agreed that there was still so much more we would have liked to have seen. There will be another similar study tour in November 2009.

COSG Annual Meeting

Our Annual Meeting will be on Saturday 9^th May at Ryton Organic Gardens (Garden Organic). Coffee will be served from 10.30 and the meeting will start at 11 am. More details later.

Members of COSG are now entitled to a 25% discount on their membership to the Overseas Organic Support Group. Their current annual subscription is £16 for members of GO (£22 for non-members) Contact Dawn Stallard, International Programme, Garden Organic for more information. Telephone: 024 76303517 email: dstallard@hdra.org.uk