ABSTRACT
Cuba's fuel, input and import crisis may provide a unique example of an entire nation that has been forced to adapt to a situation of scarcity of petroleum and petroleum-based products; one that, it is assumed, had to increase its reliance on local and organic strategies. In the absence of any broad and systematic analysis during the mid-to late-1990s, including from Cuban-based organizations, the anecdotal reporting described in Chapter 1 is all there was to go on. Had Cuba been able to feed itself without petroleum inputs, and, whether or not this was so, what were policies and strategies that had been implemented in a bid to achieve food security? Was Cuban agriculture organic? Even if dramatic changes had not evolved, what were the coping and learning strategies emerging in this sudden and enforced situation? Would Cuba choose to remain this way even after its ‘Special Period’?
