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03/29/2009: "The west should copy Cuba's organic revolution"

As worries about "peak oil" grow in developed nations, the communist republic is proving to be an increasingly popular example of how to cope when the spigots run dry, for the simple reason: they've already been there.

With the loss of supplies from oil-rich Russia in 1991, and a U.S. embargo preventing imports from elsewhere, Cuba was plunged into a severe recession in the early 1990's, referred to as "the Special Period."

Suddenly society was faced with dramatically reduced amounts of hydrocarbon energy, and the result was a fundamental reorganization of food production, leading to a boom in urban organic agriculture, which requires fewer inputs than conventional farming.

[ Let's hope the west does go this way rather than going in the direction of more genetic modification and control of agriculture by evil corporations like Monstanto. ]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/03/29/eco.cubaagriculture/