The daily struggle for food sovereignty: from Havana to Trinidad
- Jessica Garcia
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Jessica García
During our visit to Cuba, we had the opportunity to learn about some of the agroecological projects that were created with the aim of feeding their communities and thus achieving food sovereignty in the midst of an inhumane blockade. In this article, we talk about two projects and communities located in different parts of the island, but with the same goal: to produce healthy food for their communities. The first is located in Havana and the second in the municipality of Cumanayagua, in the province of Cienfuegos.
El Tabloncito: “We are trying to produce as much as we can to feed the community.”
Around 300 people live in the community of El Tabloncito, where they grow crops in their own gardens and try to be self-sufficient. This rural community is located 4 km from the town of Cumanayagua and 70 km from the coastal city of Trinidad.
We arrived there by tractor, after a stop at Finca el Porvenir, another agroecological project where Cuban families grow and produce tobacco and food for their own community. There we had lunch under photos of Che and Fidel. They welcomed us and accompanied us to El Tabloncito, where we were greeted by children singing Cuban folklore and offering seasonal fruits.
Once the introductions were made, we went out to explore the village. We toured the entire community, where we were shown the family gardens and the melipona bee production project, in which the women of the community have been responsible for honey production for nine years. In one of the homes we visited, they already have 20 beehives that produce honey. During the walk, you tell us that they produce what they can and exchange it within the community. Sometimes they also sell outside the community, in Cumanayagua.
It is difficult to grow and produce food amid the restrictions imposed by the blockade on daily life. However, agroecological production has been one of the actions taken by Cubans to overcome these obstacles. There are still many difficulties, and with the increase in restrictions imposed by the United States, it is not easy to continue fighting for food sovereignty, but they continue to do so.
An agroecological farm in Havana: Alamar farm
The Alamar farm is located in Zone 6, just outside the Cuban capital. It occupies an area of 10 hectares and is organized as a cooperative. They grow all kinds of plants, including edible, ornamental, and medicinal varieties.
This agroecological farm supplies vegetables to: 1) the community where it is located at very low prices; 2) nursing homes, maternity homes, and care centers. These places received one or two vegetable kits per month, depending on the production obtained during that period; and 3) restaurants, coffee shops, and hotels with which the farm has contracts. This is where its profits come from to sustain and increase production.
In terms of production methods, the Alamar nursery uses a natural preparation technology package that is prepared with the farm's own resources. No machinery is used to work the land, only two horses and two oxen. Everything else is done manually and no agrochemicals are used. They have eight wells for natural irrigation, and pest control is carried out using repellent plants such as oregano, sunflowers, garlic, and chili peppers.
The land belongs to the state, and they pay a symbolic rent for its use, as the state is interested in production for the community, but decisions are made internally. As it is organized as a cooperative, decisions are proposed by management, but the final decision on what is done is made at the workers' assembly. Each worker earns according to production management, meaning that those who work the land directly earn more. Today, the Cooperative has 21 workers on the entire farm. They are distributed across various departments, but that does not mean that those in the office do not go to the fields if they are needed there.
During his presentation, Ariel, the current head of production, tells us that this type of agroecological farm was created in the late 1990s as a proposal by Fidel Castro in an attempt to generate a “culture of good eating.” Precisely, the fall of the Soviet Union and the blockade imposed by the United States decades ago led Cuba to seek new options in order to survive. This is how new vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, and chard were introduced into the Cuban diet. There are currently 3,700 farms like this one across the island. While not all of them are as complete as Alamar, they are all fighting daily to achieve food sovereignty for their people.
Find more information about the agroecology in Cuba:
Documentary: Agroecology in Cuba (2017). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jShKWeoqkiU
Documentary: Our Agroecology, Our Future (2025). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nktxTxQ0G4
Article: Bringing Cuban agroecology to the next level (2024). https://rooted-magazine.org/2024/07/15/bringing-cuban-agroecology-to-the-next-level/
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