The Cuban Way?

A More Cuban Society

Yes, that says a more Cuban society, and no I didn’t mean a more American Society. America is the country that is supposed to allow freedom, and allow the citizens to have their own rights to do what they would like, but they don’t! I am specifically talking about the people involved in the agricultural business. For someone to make sufficient money in the agricultural business they must be involved with one of the large corporations (Walmart, Kroger, McDonalds, etc.). Although you are providing large amount of food to these corporations and making money, you are basically their little puppet when it comes to how things go. For example, a farmer who is growing potatoes for McDonalds is told when to plant them, when to harvest them, how to grow them, etc. To me that doesn’t sound like someone is actually a farmer more than they are just a person following instructions. This connects to these citizens not having their rights because if any of them tries to speak up about something they don’t like, or something that is happening behind the scenes, they are quickly quieted or cut off from the corporation. To me this isn’t right because citizens are the ones spending their time working hard for these corporations, while the big CEO’s of the companies are just sitting back and taking all of the credit.

A picture representing the many different things that
are actually making up potatoes

A Cuban food market in the city Havana 

As weird as this may sound, I believe that America should adopt the Cuban way in which they do agriculture. In the book “Stuff and Starved” by Raj Patel, he talks about the many different techniques that Cuba adopted to help better their agricultural standings. In Cuba GMOs are restricted, which gets rid of all the questions of what you are truly eating. They also don’t use pesticides on their crops unless absolutely necessary. I thought this sounded a little extreme but they explain more that by using the pesticides, you are not only killing the insects that are eating your crops but also the insects that eat the ones eating your crops. Another thing that Cuba does is that they actually educate their farmers on different farming techniques, and also support urban food-gardens, which makes it so one doesn’t have to travel as far for food in the city. Also the government doesn’t support feed lots because the large amounts of waste and unsanitary conditions. And last, the Cuban government listens to the citizens on things that need to be changed. By Cuba doing all this stuff, they have matched or exceeded the levels of health and education as countries with much higher incomes.

I feel as though America should adopt this way, and actually allow farmers to do their own thing and allow citizens to have the rights they are said to have.