By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Magnolia Plantation and Gardens director Tom Johnson was so impressed with what he learned about small-scale agriculture in Cuba that he’s going to change two of the popular attraction’s vegetable gardens that are seen by thousands.
“We’re going to work with more heirloom plants, build up the soil and adapt those gardens with the principles we learned there,” said Johnson, whose organization sponsored a group tour in August to the isolated country 90 miles south of Florida.
While the group visited cooperative farms, community gardens and agricultural institutes, the 17-acre farm of agronomist Fernando Funes seemed to be of most interest.
Funes left his academic job about four years ago to start farming on what he called a “human scale.” He and a team that has grown to 15 employees transformed overgrown, barren property about an hour west of Havana into a lush, terraced organic farm that grows two dozen types of vegetables, most of which are sold to area restaurants or markets twice a week. The farm also produces two tons of organic honey that is sold to foreign markets.
Funes said his first year on the farm was the hardest. It took seven months to dig a well by hand through more than 40 meters of rock. The excavated rock was used to build a thatch-covered, open barn for six cows, which produce milk and manure.
These days, there’s an integrated, off-grid energy system that fuels the farm. A solar panel on the barn provides enough power to operate the solar pump on the well. Meanwhile, manure is sluiced daily into a bio-digester that captures methane that fuels a stove in a kitchen that prepares enough food to feed 20 people a day. After the remaining waste breaks down more, it becomes the organic material that nourishes soil in terraced vegetable patches, some shaded from Cuba’s powerful sun with black gauze.
Small-scale farming can work, two say
Funes’ farm in Cuba shows how small-scale farming can work in South Carolina, said Johnson, who grew up on a middle Georgia truck farm.
“If you have a large number of these small farms producing vegetables for the market, not only will it help the local economy, but it will help balance out some of the control of the large corporate farmers,” he said.
Ellie Bomstein, food and agriculture project manager at the S.C. Coastal Conservation League in Charleston, said sustainable, small-scale agriculture has big potential in rural areas as a job creator.
“It has the potential to improve the economic, environmental and cultural health of our rural areas — what we like to call the triple bottom line. It can reinvigorate the rural way of life that defines the culture of South Carolina, and which has been eroding in the face of increasing development and divestment in rural infrastructure.
She noted sustainable agriculture can be labor-intensive, compared to large-scale farms, but that there’s still a chance for it to reenergize rural economies.
“From a conservation standpoint, local and sustainable agriculture can protect animal habitat, improve stream and river health, reduce fossil fuel use, contain sprawl and keep open space where it belongs,” she said. “South Carolina has abundant water, high-quality soil, a 12-month growing season and incredible food culture.
“If we can bring the right training, education and investment to our rural areas, South Carolina can rival all other specialty crop growing regions in the country. It’s going to require lots of collaboration and creativity to combat the efficiencies of the industrial-scale agricultural sector, but we have the land, market and manpower to do it.”
Johnson said small farms like those in Cuba can be profitable if they don’t mimic practices of large farms with heavy mechanization, fertilizer and pesticides. As a result, small farms can offer varieties that aren’t profitable for large farms to consumers, who are increasingly looking at where their food is grown.
And then there’s taste. At large farms, vegetables like tomatoes are often picked green and left to ripen in crates. But small farmers with close ties to consumers and local markets can harvest when a fruit or vegetable is at its best quality, which will provide consumers with a better product.
“There is an opportunity for a small farmer of his [Funes’] size. They can not only survive here but also prosper. We’ve been taught that something that small can’t be profitable. But they can adapt and be profitable. And, he’s not only keeping the produce he provides in his community, but he’s keeping the income and jobs in the community.
“[In Cuba], they’re taking everything back to the grassroots the way gardening was originally done. I wish this country would do more of that — the quality of the food is better.”
- Read more about Funes’ farm in this August story in the Washington Post.
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