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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Musings II
  • Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2013 05:50:38 -0500

On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 1:46 AM, loren luyendyk <loren@sborganics.com>wrote:

>
> Despite a rough history, it seemed that Cubans are genuinely happy. They
> may crave for some of the technogadgets and shiny things the rest of the
> world has, but are better off without them in my opinion. The
> juxtaposition came to mind that Cubans have little and are happy, while
> USAliens have lots and are depressed. You could insert any 2/3rds world
> culture for Cuba, as I have seen this over and over.
>
> And I too fear for the future of Cuba- the near future. Fidel and Raul
> are getting old and I don't think they have familial successors. The rule
> of Cuba will be up for grabs in some way very soon, and hopefully the
> multinational Capitalists don't get their fingers in there. Not so
> coincidentally, there was a ConAgra conference running concurrently and
> less than a mile from the IPC Conference. This is scary. The USA would
> love to exploit Cuba.
>
> I see real potential for a permaculture food revolution there,


And if they don't and are swallowed up by multinational agribusiness they
will have noone to thank but themselves and for not having their own
internal revolution and overthrowing the corrupt repressive dictatorship
they are trying to survive under. Communism indeed! Even I know how real
communism or better communalism as developed in Germany, Russia and Ukraine
before WWII; look what Stalin did to the ag productive Kulaks
(Kalashnikov's family) to complete his takeover of food production there
through the collectives feeding the party elite and starving everyone else
- then they actually did starve 20 million Ukrainians with their blockade.
This is Stalinism, not communism in its purest sense. Castro regime more
interested in doing exactly the kind of thing Stalin did in separating a
harmonious family to extradite an unwilling subject of the state, a
pregnant woman. Absurd and counterproductive. The Cubans have everything
going for them for
converting the national agriculture to a vast working network of natural
permaculture market farms. They can do this now and if they don;t and take
their country back, keep the Cuban expats out,
multinational agribusinesss out, keep the Chinese and Russians out and get
back to basics, local industry functioning within a national network, local
and community economies, local farming for local sales. Le their government
do what governments do best, health, education and welfare, defense,
national transportation infrastructure, energy production and distribution,
emergency services, carefully chosen foreign trade (they could make a
fortune on tobacco products, organic tobacco! organic raw sugar! artisanal
organic rum! other tropical gourmet foods, organic tropical fruit: all
citrus. If the US lifted the Cuban embargo trade for these items with the
USA could generate significant income for the Cuban people. And they seem
to have vast offshore oil reserves. After reading about all the
disapointment amongst IPC11 attendees with Cuban agriculture, gardening and
permaculture
and Loren;s unbelievable description of Cuban mainstream monocrop chemical
based agriculture I an surprised that they have done so little over the
decades to move toward of national independence and self sufficiency in
food production using natural, sustainable, regenerative, permacultural
methods and materials, providing Cubans with a robust diet of maximally
nutritious food and having a surplus to export to other countries. Look at
Mexican agriculture and how much is exported to the US; the best Meyer
lemons in US stores for starters. I enjoy an ongoing thread of humor with
some of my friends where I describe the LL Plan for Cuba, or Venezuela or
Iran or Iraq or Afganistan; open ended brainstorming about utopian
scenarios involving ultimate permaculture and natural market and homestead
agriculture, networking and product distribution in those countries. My
idea for a product and services production, marketing and distribution
national network would work for those people. Why have Cubans done so
little to develop robust systems of local permaculture market agriculture.
Is their government helping or hindering?
Is their regime just waiting until the time is right for the Chinese to
harvest their offshore oil and vertically integrated multinational
agribusiness carry out all their agriculture and supply all their food
through foreign owned stores, no more local production, hoe and tourist
industries develop all the pristine unspoiled countryside, wilderness,
fragile ecological zones and coastline? all for vast windfall rewards for
the faithful party elite just as in Stalin's Russia? What about a massive
influx of natural farming and permaculture expertise helping to guide Cuba
toward natural self sufficiency and independence?

LL


> but the current mainstream farming is the same as the rest of the world.
> Sugar cane, tobacco, rice- monocropped, sprayed. Based on machinery and
> petroleum. We saw a lot of this to the east of Havana towards Cienfuegos.
> The industrial ag model is pretty prevalent there.
>



--
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
http://www.avantgeared.com
https://plus.google.com/+Avantgeared
Skype: lawrence.f.london




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