[Sdpg] Organic Agriculture Tour of Cuba

[Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

Organic Agriculture Tour of Cuba
JUST A FEW SEATS LEFT! BOOK YOUR RESERVATION NOW!!


Please join the Institute for Bioregional Studies on a tour that
promises to be enlightening,
informative, inspiring and entertaining.   www.macqueens.com/ibs


Why Cuba?
An agricultural system that promotes ecologically sustainable production
thorough soil
conservation, organic soil inputs, biological pest control, and the
reincorporation of rural
populations into agriculture may seem to be a utopian vision in much of
the Western world but it
is nothing more than government policy in Cuba.

Prior to 1989 Cuban agriculture was based on large-scale,
capital-intensive mono-culture. More
than 90 percent of fertilizers and pesticides, were imported from
abroad. When trade relations
with the socialist bloc collapsed, pesticides and fertilizers virtually
disappeared, and the availability
of  petroleum for agriculture dropped by half. Food imports also fell by
more than a half.
The result was that Cuba underwent a conversion from modern
agro-chemical agriculture to
organic or semi-organic farming.

In this sense, Cuba is breaking down the myths that have inhibited the
widespread adoption of
organic farming and is undergoing the largest conversion to organic
farming in world history.

The Cuban Association for Organic Farming, a non-governmental
organization, holds that Cuba
offers the very first large- scale test of more sustainable
alternatives,  perhaps the only chance to
see what works and what doesn’t, before environmental realities mandate
the rest of the world
embark on a sudden, wholesale switch to organic agriculture.

When?
February 2-9, 2003 (With an optional second holiday week).

SINCE THIS IS THE PEAK TOURIST TIME IN CUBA, YOU MUST REGISTER AS SOON
AS POSSIBLE.

How?
Visit our web site for details; www.macqueens.com/ibs or call
1-800-WOW-CUBA OR (902)
368-2453

Highlights:
Meet farmers, professors and other experts.
See sugar cane, rice, vegetable, root crop, animal production sites, and
green medicine gardens -
and its integration in socialized healthcare - while we tour and learn
about the leadership role this
"developing" nation is undergoing in regards to sustainable development
.
Visit community run urban gardens, farmers markets and rural
agricultural co-ops
Join us in our efforts to establish real links and  connections with our
Cuban counterparts.



The Institute for Bioregional Studies is a nonprofit, charitable
organization dedicated to the
promotion of “restoring community, protecting the land and informing the
earth’s stewards.”
Please assist us by forwarding this announcement to others, creating
links to our www site and
posting this announcement where ever possible. Thank you.
Visit our www site for details. www.macqueens.com/ibs

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
(805) 962-2571
sbpcnet at silcom.com 

"We are like trees, we must create new leaves, in new directions, in order to
grow." - Anonymous

>
> May no bomb fall on your head
> or on your child's head or on your enemy's head
> or on his child's head
> or on the snail
> in his garden.

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