Vivero Organopónico Alamar – Small Urban Farms Yield Big in Havana

Vivero Organopónico Alamar –
Small Urban Farms Yield Big in Havana

Graduate student and former Kansas City horticulturalist reports on raised bed farming in Cuban capital.

	Fields of Vivero Organopónico Alamar.

Maria Whittaker is a nontraditional graduate student in environmental studies at the University of Michigan and the Institute of Tropical Agriculture (INIFAT) in Havana, Cuba, where she is studying intensive urban agriculture. She was a lawyer and horticulturalist / landscape designer before she found her passion for urban agriculture. She is researching children's participation in urban agriculture with the goal of alleviating child hunger, malnutrition and poverty in poor communities. Before she entered the graduate program, Maria was a regular volunteer on the KC Community Farm.

My passion for urban sustainable agriculture as a solution to hunger, malnutrition and poverty led me to Cuba this summer to attend a conference on organic agriculture and to research Cuba’s intensive urban organic practices. Conventional agriculture with its reliance on the combustion of petroleum and coal for fuel as well as the production of agricultural chemicals is not only expensive, but also one of the biggest contributors to global warming. As a result, scientists and farmers have been searching for highly productive methods of farming that require fewer inputs. Nowhere has this been truer than in Cuba. Faced with a US economic embargo, the country lost 83% of its trade in 1989 when the USSR dissolved, sending the island nation into severe economic downturn.

	The organopónico is essentially a raised bed, contained on all sides, approximately 100 feet long by 4 feet wide and 1 foot deep.

Today, urban organic agriculture is an important component in reaching the basic nutritional requirements of the Cuban population and Cuba’s continuing recovery from its economic crisis of the 1990s. The organopónico is the most important, productive technique of this intensive, urban, organic practice. The organopónico is essentially a raised bed, contained on all sides, approximately 100 feet long by 4 feet wide and 1 foot deep. The beds are built parallel to each other approximately 1.5 feet apart, running north and south if possible.

The organopónico is filled with about 50% high quality organic material such as humus de lombriz (worm castings) or all types of manure which improves the structure and adds nutrition and living organisms to the soil; 25% composted waste such as rice husks or coffee bean shells; and 25% native soil. In order to conserve the fertility of the soil, no less than 20 pounds of organic material per 10 square feet per year is added to the container.

Depending on the plant, seeds can be sown directly in the container or seedlings can be transplanted. Cubans plant approximately 56 species of vegetables and fruits in organopónicos in the course of a year, from spices to tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, onions, carrots and lettuce. By containing the soil, its quality can be maintained indefinitely. Much less soil is lost through erosion. The contained bed also retains moisture.

Repellant plants such as marigolds, vinca, the flower of Jamaica, basil, and neem trees are planted around the containers at various distances to repel harmful insects such as aphids and various beetles. Sunflowers and corn are planted around the beds to attract beneficial insects such as lady bugs and lace wings. Sunflowers and corn are also planted in rows throughout the field to change the flow of pests in the field. Colored traps, sticky paper or plastic funnel-shaped bottles, usually yellow or blue, are stationed throughout the beds to trap harmful pests.

Biological controls from the neem tree and tobacco plants for example, and predator insects, as well as biofertilizers are used to increase productivity. The beds are meticulously cleaned of weeds or undesirable plants.

	In one year, Alamar Organopónico in Havana, where I volunteer, produced 44 pounds of produce per 10 square foot, a very high yield.

A sprinkler system is used to irrigate the beds instead of the more efficient drip irrigation so as to reach all four rows of plants in the bed. Gravel or tubes in the beds provide drainage. Organopónicos can be partially protected by a shade screen or completely protected by a metal screen house or not protected at all. Companion planting and crop rotation are practiced. At the entrance of every agricultural unit is a place for workers to disinfect their feet and hands to increase sanitation.

Good nutritious soil and adequate water are the basis for healthy, resistant plants and are key to the organopónico in Cuba. The organopónico has increased food productivity in Cuba enormously without a concomitant increase in the use of fossil fuels. In one year, Alamar Organopónico in Havana, where I volunteer, produced 44 pounds of produce per 10 square foot, a very high yield.

Furthermore, as one experienced farmer movingly pointed out, Cuban farmers may not be as productive as they were using conventional agriculture, but the costs in terms of energy consumption, are much less. Less, too, are the costs to society in terms of adding to global warming and other forms of pollution that threaten to destroy the life-support system we all depend on.

Read and learn more about Vivero Organopónico Alamar here:

	Megan Quinn's Havana's Urban Organic Agricultural Revolution

	Carol Hunter's The Next Revolution: Out of Crisis, Cuba's Farms Flourish

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