Cuba's 'seed man' wins global environmental prize

[cory777]

Source: AP

The folk-singing scientist strides over dry, fluffy soil that's brown with a hint of red, like brownies fresh from the oven. He's talking about seeds. He's always talking about seeds.

Humberto Rios Labrada's campaign to let Cuban farmers choose the crops and seed varieties best for their lands helped him win one of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prizes -- known as the "green Nobels" -- on Monday.

"I want the seed to adapt to the people, not the people to adapt to the seed," the 47-year-old, self-described hippy told The Associated Press during a recent visit to this farming town 20 miles east of Havana.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/wires/allwires/2010/04/19/D9F60A780_cb_cuba_seed_man/index.html

[dipsydoodle]

1. aka

F.U. Monsanto.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Second that motion, depsydoole. Every last one of those maggots. n/t

[Ghost Dog]

3. "decentralize decision-making to local levels"

... When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Cuba was stuck with an agricultural system dependent on agrochemicals it could no longer get and an environment damaged by their heavy use.

Rios, then a doctoral student in agricultural sciences, began to see positive results as farmers, out of necessity, turned to traditional ways. In the late 1990s he launched a program to encourage their broader use.

His biggest emphasis, he told Reuters in a recent interview, was to simply give farmers more seed choices and to let them, not distant bureaucrats and scientists, decide which ones to use.

He began organizing "seed fairs" in farming communities where farmers could choose from a broad selection of seeds. They were encouraged to share information on the results so that each farm became a micro-experimental station.

The key was that farmers chose seeds suited to their specific conditions, he said, instead of everyone getting the same ones.

In different regions of the island, "the criteria for seed selection are completely different," Rios said.

He said yields began doubling and tripling, and soil damaged by years of overuse and chemicals began to recuperate as crops were rotated and agrochemicals abandoned.

"When you use a diversified system, over the years it increases the amount of protein per area, the amount of vitamins per area, it diminishes the amount of work per area and above all, it increases the smiles of the people," he said.

He says 50,000 farmers are involved in his Program for Local Agricultural Innovation, which is backed by the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, but much work remains.

Most land and agriculture is under state control in Cuba, but the island has 250,000 small farmers and 1,100 private cooperatives who, together, produce 70 percent of agricultural output on less than a third of the available land.

Cuba is dependent on imports for most of its basic foods, which drains its fragile economy and has forced President Raul Castro to put more land in private hands and -- as Rios advocates -- decentralize decision-making to local levels.

/... http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cuban-scientist-wins-us-b

[harun]

4. Brilliant.

[ensho]

7. agree - and may monsanto fall down and never get up

nt

[Billy Burnett]

14. +1 Too bad the US is waging war on Cuba at the behest of profiteering interests.

After the 1959 Revolution the new Cuban president, Osvaldo Dorticos, announced that the nation's oil/gas infrastructure would be nationalized and that Cuba would pay the US oil companies a settlement based on arbitration.

The US oil companies refused, under the threat from USAG that they would be charged with trading with the enemy. This is why no US companies or citizens or exiles have received any settlements - settlements that Cuba paid to all other nation's companies and citizens who lost property during nationalization.

If the US's continuous efforts to overthrow the Cuban government ever succeed, the oil companies are going to collect, and collect with interest. The US will be underwriting massive building efforts in Cuba and at the same time Cuba will be paying back big oil. Mission accomplished. Freedom.

[izquierdista]

11. And what if they didn't?

All you have to do see what central planning does to agriculture is to look at North Korea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDeYc8SX6OY

[pnorman]

5. Had trouble with that URL.

Try this: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=10411465

[bemildred]

6. Nature loves complexity and hates central planning and monocultures.

Centralized systems are "brittle" and never scale well.

[ensho]

8. true

nt

[ensho]

9. hugs and kisses for Humberto for his green Nobel

nt

[jody]

10. Ironic that individual freedom thrives in a socialist govt. dominated by central planning. n/t

[Liberation Angel]

12. cool beans

hot salsa!

[Lagomorph]

13. The tobacco seeds are...

highly coveted.