In Cuba, arable land is being reclaimed from decades of pesticides, fertilizers and mono-culture. What can the rest of the world learn from this small Caribbean nation before its too late.
Our arable land is suffering. With a decline in crop diversity and a growing reliance on pesticides and fertilizers, our land is malnourished. As the earth’s population grows, we cannot risk the health of our land upon which so many people depend for food.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Thanks to the commitment of Cuban farms and a scientist and biodiversity researcher named Humberto Ríos Labrada, Cuba is moving away from its chemical-intensive, highly-mechanized mono-culture to becoming global model in biodiversity and sustainable farming using crop rotation, beneficial insects and reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides and fertilizers.
Humberto Ríos Labrada recently was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, the world’s largest award for grassroots environmentalists, for his work promoting sustainable agriculture by working with farmers to increase crop diversity and develop low-input agricultural systems that greatly reduce the need for pesticide and fertilizer, encouraging Cuba’s shift from agricultural chemical dependence.
This video, narrated by actor and environmentalist Robert Redford, shows how an inspiring scientist and a small country of committed people cut off from much of the world by a decades-old U.S.-led blockade, are renourishing their soil.
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB_uvOnXteI
Learn more about the Goldman Environmental Prize http://www.goldmanprize.org/2010/islands
Photo Credit
“2010 – Islands – Humberto Ríos Labrada and farmers at seed diversity fair.” Photo: Will Parrinello
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