Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, a trans-disciplinary, open-access journal, has announced Cuba's Agrifood System in Transition, a new collection of research aimed at amplifying the voices of Cuban experts and fostering exchange and dialogue on sustainable agrifood practices, in the island nation and beyond.
Cuba's experiences with sustainable agriculture and agroecology have been the subject of much international attention, with advocates for sustainability, food security and food sovereignty having looked to Cuba in order to model alternatives to industrial agriculture globally, and to demonstrate the feasibility of sustainable agrifood practices at scale. This collection launches with eight articles, published in both Spanish and English, and from Cuban and non-Cuban researchers, practitioners and policy makers, examining the social, economic and ecological strategies necessary for a sustainable agrifood system, and detailing the opportunities and barriers to scaling up agroecology in Cuba and beyond.
The agrifood system tends to be understood either as an organic, food sovereign utopia, or as a backwards, underdeveloped sector desperately requiring modernisation and revitalisation through foreign investment. Cuba's Agrifood System in Transition presents a more balanced perspective, analysing the nuances of agroecological development in Cuba, highlighting important innovations that have been implemented, and examining some of the significant challenges that continue to be faced.
Among the first articles to publish in this collection are ‘New opportunities, new challenges: Harnessing Cuba's advances in agroecology and sustainable agriculture in the context of changing relations with the United States,' which synthesises and updates the contemporary literature on the Cuban agricultural and food system and analyses the potential futures of agroecology in relation to geopolitical changes; 'How to make prosperous and sustainable family farming in Cuba a reality,' a practice bridge article written by two Cuban farmers documenting their transition towards agroecology and the development of a resilience indicator; 'The role of biological control in the sustainability of the Cuban agri-food system,' which documents the evolution of different types of biological control of pests as an alternative to pesticides; and 'Recent transformations in Cuban agricultural policy and impacts on markets and production,' an analysis of a series of policy transformations implemented by the Cuban government since 2007 to increase the country's agricultural self-sufficiency and reduce its dependence on food imports.
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