If you were intrigued by Cary Fowler’s reference during his TED talk to the book “The Apples of New York,” you’ll be pleased to hear that it is online in a variety of formats. You can download it, or read it online at Google Books. Incidentally, there’s also a similar book on the pears of New York, though by a different author, “the sixth in a series of monographs on fruits, all of which have become classic references on the fruit cultivars of the period.” The pear book mentions a specific tree, the Endicott Pear Tree at Danvers, Massachusetts. That tree, which may have come to America from England on the Arbella in 1630, is still there. It is said to be the “oldest living fruit tree in North America,” although I’m pretty sure the word “exotic” should be in there too, and I do wonder about Mexico.
Cary does TED
Cuba revisited
We noted a couple of weeks ago that Cuba’s urban agriculture miracle has feet of clay. That was prompted by Julia Wright’s book Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in an Era of Oil Scarcity: Lessons from Cuba, recently published by Earthscan. One of the main conclusions of the book is that the much-lauded organoponicos, the urban organic vegetable gardens, are not quite the overwhelming success that has been claimed. Or, as the publisher’s blurb puts it:
Paradoxically, the book dispels the myth that Cuba turned to organic farming nationwide, a myth founded on the success of Cuba’s urban organic production systems which visitors to the country are most commonly exposed to. In rural regions, where the author had unique access, industrialized high-input and integrated agriculture is aspired to for the majority of domestic production, despite the ongoing fluctuations in availability of agrochemicals and fuel.
Alas, the mere suggestion that Cuba’s garden is not as rosy as we would like it to be has upset some people, who commented here and elsewhere. I’m having a little difficulty following the thrust of the objections, but there is a cry for “hard facts”. I’ve taken steps to get some more, and my own view is that the defenders of the faith are perhaps missing some important findings from the actual research. Here, for example, is an extract from a paper on Relocalizing Food Systems for Food Security: Successes and Challenges in Cuba given by Julia Wright at the International Conference on Organic Agriculture and Food Security, held at FAO in May 2007:
The research demonstrated that rural production in Cuba was not organic: 83 percent of farmers wished to use more chemical inputs when they became available and substituted with organic inputs only when availability of chemical inputs was limited. The State aimed at 70 percent high-input or integrated production of many staple crops, and the small quantity of chemicals available were allocated to specific crops and farms while others received none. This produced a patchwork of organic, integrated and industrialized approaches to agriculture at the field, farm and regional levels.
Here’s a little bit of a review from Kathy Riley, of the New Economics Foundation, published in a journal of the International Institute for the Study of Cuba at London Metropolitan University:
Wright demonstrates how the State’s approach to urban organic agriculture has been characterised both by response to people’s own experiments with organic technology, and by top-down implementation of organic policies (such as the organopónicos). In general, experiences of urban organic agriculture have been positive, although Wright reports wild variances in the literature about the percentage of fruit and vegetables supplied through these methods.
…
Wright cites the pervasiveness of the industrial farming mindset as a significant obstacle, with its embedded fears about organic methods meaning shortages (for example, in yields), and the fear of losing control (for example, over pests). Wider reflection on Cuban society would reveal that this ‘industrial mindset’ runs deep in Cuban thinking at both governmental and at local levels, with ‘development’ in all its guises strongly associated with modern methods and technologies. Within this context it seems all the more striking that Cuban policy has pushed the bounds of conventional agriculture so far.
Like I said, I’m trying to get more. In the meantime, Patrick asked one other question:
I’ve heard mostly good things about what’s going on in Cuba, and the arguments against it sound more like recent political debates in the US than anything else. Who’s paying these people to make these arguments?
Julia Wright is currently paid by Garden Organic, which I know Patrick knows well. I’m not sure who funded her PhD, and she returns to Cuba every year, supporting the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Agricolas in their work with farmers throughout the country to promote local agricultural innovation and especially for drought mitigation. If you want to ask her about her work yourself, why not pop along to “an inspiring and visionary community event” to be held in Oxford, England, on 17th October 2009: What could a sustainable future look like? And if you do, report for us!
Featured: Toddy
Ravi, an engineer from India, stands ready to offer training in value-added coconut products:
Instead of begging to government, farmers should concentrate on other value added products (except toddy) from coconut, but where [is] know how available, proper training for commercial production,marketting tie up & finance? [T]hese are few questions standing before coconut growers of India. I am ready to do this job by establishing a training centre for coconut products manufacturing. Please provide the know how on coconut sugar and assistance/gran[t] to establish the centre.
Can anyone help?
Around the Carver Center
I’ve just got back from my second trip to the US in three weeks. 1 After Ames, Iowa a couple of weeks ago, last week was the turn of Beltsville, Maryland. Again we were hosted by USDA-ARS, this time at the George Washington Carver Center, so again many thanks to our friends there for the hospitality.
A legendary African-American post-bellum agriculturalist, breeder, botanist and educator, Carver in fact provides a further connection between the two places, as he was a student and then a faculty member at Iowa State University. On gaining his masters degree in 1896, Carver was invited by Booker T. Washington to take charge of the Agriculture Department at the five-year-old Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, later Tuskegee University in Alabama, which he was adamant would “unlock the golden dawn of freedom to our people.” A gifted educator, he took his teaching on the road, by way of the mule-drawn Jesup Agricultural Wagon, built by the students and named after New York financier Morris K. Jesup, who provided the funds for it. Later replaced by a motorized vehicle, the original can be seen in the lobby of the Carver Center.
Another interesting exhibit in the Carver Center is the ARS Science Hall of Fame. This has been honouring ARS scientists for their achievements since 1986. Alas, although a number of breeders have made it, nobody involved primarily in the conservation side of genetic resources science has been elected. Yet.