City of Farmers | Organic | Medicines | The Future

Growing Medicine
Making a Virtue of Necessity

Havana’s farmers do more than feed people. They also produce medicinal plants that are helping to sustain Cuba’s highly-respected, but cash-poor health system. (Average life expectancy in Cuba is 75 years, only a year lower than in the United States). Pharmaceuticals are scarce, and many are reserved for children. For adults the only option is to rely on traditional remedies, many of which have been passed down by the descendants of the slaves who came to Cuba from Africa. Others were introduced by the island’s small number of Chinese immigrants. Today a doctor can prescribe herbal remedies, which are available in pharmacies.

Urban farming also has the potential to improve the diet of Havana residents, who now have better access to fresh vegetables. The government has introduced educational campaigns in schools and in the mass media on how to use and conserve vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables produced by urban farms.

Seeds in the City
© Knowledge in Action and
© Sound Development Communications Media
2004

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