Agriculture in Cuba

Today, it contributes less than 10% to the gross domestic product (GDP), but it employs about 20% of the working population.

[2]: 21  Naval and agricultural enterprises both needed wood and in 1815 the Spanish Crown gave sugar planters the right to clear land at will.

[2]: 21  Large amounts of forests were cleared to provide land for growing sugarcane and top use wood for energy in mills.

[2]: 21 Before the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the agricultural sector in Cuba was largely oriented towards and dominated by the US economy.

[3] After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cuban agricultural sector faced a very difficult period.

The sugar industry was one of the more highly mechanized sectors of the Cuban economy, and its machinery came from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany.

[4] The government aimed to strengthen agricultural biodiversity by making a greater range of varieties of seed available to farmers.

[6] Due to the shortage in artificial fertilizers and pesticides, Cuba's agricultural sector largely turned organic,[7] with the organopónicos playing a major role in this transition.

Due to the shortage of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, a popular movement of urban agriculture developed.

[4] Citrus production and processing was the first foreign investment in Cuba's agricultural sector, in 1991, the participation of an enterprise from Israel, the Jagüey Grande area, approximately 140 km (90 mi) east of Havana.

Potato production areas (in total 37,000 acres or 150 square kilometres) are concentrated in the western part of Cuba.

[18] Production is limited by the shortage of water and, similar to other industries in Cuba, lack of fertilizer and modern agricultural technology.

85% of the tobacco grown in Cuba is produced by National Association of Small Farmers members.

[27] Other tropical fruits produced in Cuba are mango, Papaya, Mamey Sapote, pineapple, avocado, guava, coconut, and annonaceae (custard apple family).

[28] Main exports include cigars, raw sugar, nickel products, rum and zinc.