IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/agrhuv/v14y1997i3p291-302.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cuba: Ethics, biological control, and crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Rosset

Abstract

The 1989 collapse of trade relations with the former socialist bloc plunged Cuba into an economic and food crisis. Cuban farmers, scientists, and planners have responded with alternative agricultural technology to make up for imported food and Green Revolution inputs that are no longer available. A review of Cuban experience to date with biological pest control practices shows that, on the one hand, significant progress has been made that may serve as a model for other countries, while, on the other hand, there still remains a long way to go if Cuba is to create a truly sustainable agriculture. It is essential that we understand the Cuban case if we are to be concerned about ethical issues in biological control. The apparent ability of Cuba to overcome a food crisis without significant use of pesticides stretches our concept of the possible. It thus helps refute the most common argument – that we couldn't “feed the hungry” without pesticides – against taking the “ethical” position in real-world pest management policy debates. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1997

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Rosset, 1997. "Cuba: Ethics, biological control, and crisis," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 14(3), pages 291-302, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:14:y:1997:i:3:p:291-302
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1007433501248
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1007433501248
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1007433501248?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Gersper & Carmen Rodríguez-Barbosa & Laura Orlando, 1993. "Soil conservation in Cuba: A key to the new model for agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 10(3), pages 16-23, June.
    2. Nina Shishkoff, 1993. "Plant diseases and their control by biological means in Cuba," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 10(3), pages 24-30, June.
    3. Miguel Altieri & Peter Rosset & Clara Nicholls, 1997. "Biological control and agricultural modernization: Towards resolution of some contradictions," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 14(3), pages 303-310, September.
    4. Deere, C.D., 1992. "Socialism on one island? : Cuba's national food program and its prospects for food security," ISS Working Papers - General Series 18824, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    5. Jeff Dlott & Ivette Perfecto & Peter Rosset & Larry Burkham & Julio Monterrey & John Vandermeer, 1993. "Management of insect pests and weeds," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 10(3), pages 9-15, June.
    6. Richard Levins, 1993. "The ecological transformation of Cuba," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 10(3), pages 52-60, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erin Nelson & Steffanie Scott & Judie Cukier & Ángel Galán, 2009. "Institutionalizing agroecology: successes and challenges in Cuba," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 26(3), pages 233-243, September.
    2. Gregor Devine & Michael Furlong, 2007. "Insecticide use: Contexts and ecological consequences," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 24(3), pages 281-306, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul Gersper & Carmen Rodríguez-Barbosa & Laura Orlando, 1993. "Soil conservation in Cuba: A key to the new model for agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 10(3), pages 16-23, June.
    2. Carmen Deere, 1993. "Cuba's national food program and its prospects for food security," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 10(3), pages 35-51, June.
    3. Alison Power, 1999. "Linking Ecological Sustainability and World Food Needs," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 185-196, September.
    4. Sergio Díaz-Briquets & Jorge F. Pérez-López, 1995. "The Special Period and the Environment," Annual Proceedings, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, vol. 5.
    5. Patrick Baur, 2020. "When farmers are pulled in too many directions: comparing institutional drivers of food safety and environmental sustainability in California agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(4), pages 1175-1194, December.
    6. Sergio Díaz-Briquets, 1996. "Forestry Policies of Cuba's Socialist Government: An Appraisal," Annual Proceedings, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, vol. 6.
    7. Harvey S. James, 2023. "Agriculture and human values at 40 years: reflections on its scale and scope," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(1), pages 25-30, March.
    8. John Vandermeer & Judith Carney & Paul Gersper & Ivette Perfecto & Peter Rosset, 1993. "Cuba and the dilemma of modern agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 10(3), pages 3-8, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:14:y:1997:i:3:p:291-302. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.