Cuba launches radical five-year agriculture plan

Cuba launches radical five-year agriculture plan
Published Date: 08 February 2010
By Marc Frank

CUBA has launched an ambitious project to surround urban areas with
thousands of small farms in an effort to reverse the country's long
agricultural decline and ease its chronic economic woes.
The five-year plan calls for growing fruit and vegetables and raising
livestock in four-mile-wide rings around 150 of Cuba's cities and towns,
with the exception of the capital, Havana.

The island's Communist authorities hope such suburban farming will make
food cheaper and more abundant, cut transportation costs, be less
reliant on machinery and encourage urban dwellers to leave bureaucratic
jobs for more productive labour.

But the government will continue to hold a monopoly on most aspects of
food production and distribution, including its control of most of the land.

The pilot programme for the project is being conducted in the central
city of Camaguey.

Cuba launches radical five-year agriculture plan - The Scotsman (8
February 2010)
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/Cuba-launches-radical-fiveyear-agriculture.6050730.jp