ABSTRACT
Several foreign reporters have commented on Cuba's pro-organic policy. ‘Organic agriculture has been adopted as the official government strategy for all new agriculture in Cuba, after its highly successful introduction just seven years ago’ (The Pesticides Trust, 1998); ‘Cuba is perhaps the best example of large-scale government support to organic agriculture … It is an integral part of agricultural policy’ (Scialabba, 2000). In reality there was, up to 2000, no legislation on organic agriculture, certified or otherwise. Perhaps the most firm, high-level endorsement was in a speech given by Castro at the 1996 World Food Summit, where he stated that ‘Enhancing food security demands extending sustainable agricultural techniques so that the various economic units operate as agro–ecological farms.’ Therefore, although certain elements of an organic system were present in the country, such as the CREEs, the grassroots organic movement (ACAO), organic training courses, urban organoponicos and so on, there was no policy to gel these elements together nor to prioritize these over other strategies. In this sense, any semblance of a widespread organic system was in place, not through cohesive policy but through a shared lack of other options.
