Scaling sustainable agriculture: multiplying the Farmer-to-Farmer Agroecology movement in Cuba
This is the inspiring story of the Farmer-to-Farmer Agroecology Movement (MACAC) in Cuba. The movement has spread across Cuba and inspired over 200,000 farmers to take up agro-ecological farming practices. The story shows that it possible for a social movement to take sustainable agroecological farming systems to scale. Their experience counters the logic of conventional top-down approaches of agricultural extension and shows that locally specific solutions developed and disseminated by farmers themselves can provide significant and sustainable benefits for food production, rural livelihoods and environmental restoration. The experience provides valuable insights about how agroecology can help improve farmers’ well-being while simultaneously restoring the ecological health of the environment on which people’s livelihoods depend, increasing climate resilience and reducing carbon emissions from agriculture.
