Sowing Change: The Making of Havana's Urban Agriculture

2. Urban Agriculture, Politics, and Unwanted Deviations

30 2 Urban Agriculture, Politics, and Unwanted Deviations Food, the Revolution, and Its Leadership In 1997, I was invited by an employee of the FANJNH to join a group of foreign garden activists on a tour of Havana gardens. One of our first stops was the Santovenia home for the elderly, run by a group of Spanish nuns, in the humble municipality of El Cerro. Pastorita Núñez, a recent resident of the retirement home and a well-known revolutionary figure, greeted us at the gate, welcoming us to a small organopónico she had started there a few years prior. The garden provided the retirement home, as well as a couple of institutional kitchens in the neighborhood, with needed condiments and greens. Given Pastorita’s status as a political celebrity, still remembered by many Cubans for her role in building and allocating homes at the beginning of the revolution, I was not surprised by the garden’s already established fame. Pastorita was proud of the garden and seemed particularly pleased with the flowers growing around its perimeter, remarking that there was no reason vegetable gardens could not make room for beauty. I did not see Pastorita again until June 2002. By then, her health had declined considerably and she had lost much of her earlier vitality. As we sat in the cloister of the Santovenia convent, she seemed somewhat distant, yet she politely responded to all my questions. When I asked her about the origins of the garden, she succinctly told me, “Being a revolutionary, once I heard Raúl Castro’s speech on the radio complimenting those who were producing food against all odds, proving that 31 Urban Agriculture, Politics, and Unwanted Deviations “sí, se puede” [yes, it can be done], I sent him a message and requested assistance to begin the garden.” Raúl complied and the garden became a reality. As a newspaper article reported, Pastorita soon acknowledged Raúl’s assistance by publicly naming him “godfather” of the site (Rodriguez Calderón 1995). Pastorita was not alone in tracing the origins of her garden to the figure of Raúl Castro, then vice president of Cuba and minister of the FAR. General Sio Wong also mentioned Raúl in connection to the INRE garden , recounting to me how, as early as 1987, Raúl had directed the army to ensure its food provisions by creating organopónicos throughout the country. Sio Wong told me that, in 1991, as party members were called to intervene creatively to help fight the rising food insecurity among the population, he remembered Raúl’s mandate of a few years back and applied it to Havana, creating the organopónico on Fifth Avenue. The political pedigree of such urban agriculture sites was often mentioned in the media and was common knowledge among urban agriculture practitioners. It importantly hinted at the intimate connections of this practice as a whole with the revolutionary elite, embodied in the figure of Raúl, who was often described by higher-level officials within the FAR and the MINAG as the driving force behind the national urban agriculture movement. There is no denying that, in Cuba, the rise of urban agriculture activities in the early 1990s was not only enabled but also promoted by the highest levels of government. Without the willingness of the leadership to allocate state land and ensure the widespread distribution of other necessary resources, such as production inputs, the urban agriculture movement would not have flourished as it has. It is also true that in a situation of extreme food insecurity, the political leadership could not afford to ignore the needs of the population, particularly in a country like Cuba, where food and politics are inextricably intertwined. Drawing on narratives that represent the official perspective on urban agriculture, this chapter illustrates the manner in which related sites are discursively associated with the revolutionary struggle. The analysis further shows how, despite the talk of revolutionary commitment in this realm, in official circles urban agriculture is also recognized as posing 32 Sowing Change serious challenges for established revolutionary tenets and institutionally entrenched modes of operating. As will be shown, concern over the unmonitored development of urban agriculture only increased as the economy recovered and state actors regained their ability to assert more centralized models of development. Before delving into the current political significance of urban agriculture, the chapter begins by explaining how...