Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
In the 1980s, Cuba reportedly had more tractors per hectare than California. But after the
collapse of the Soviet bloc, which had been paying fair trade prices for Cuba's sugar, the
country suddenly found itself undergoing an energy famine that may provide a foretaste of
what is in store for all of us. Without oil, Cuban farmers had to resort to oxen. There were
perhaps 50,000 teams of the animals left in Cuba in 1990, and maybe that many farmers
who still knew how to use them, but that soon changed. Cuba's Agricultural Mechaniza-
tion Research Institute developed improved machinery for ploughing, harrowing, ridging,
and tilling, specially designed not “to invert the topsoil layer” and decrease fertility. Har-
ness shops were set up to start producing reins and yokes, and the number of blacksmith
shops quintupled. The Ministry of Agriculture stopped slaughtering oxen for food, and any
in good physical condition were delivered to cooperative and state farms. By the end of the
millennium there were 400,000 oxen teams plying the country's fields. One result was a
dramatic reduction in soil compaction: 'Across the country we see dry soils turning health-
ier, loamier. Soon an ambitious young Cuban will be able to get a master's degree in oxen
management.'
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This prediction from a Cuban professor, cited in a 2005 article by journalist Bill McGib-
ben, has proved to be a bit optimistic. In 2008, Cuban environmentalist Roberto Sanchez
Medina reported that with the end of the 'special period' (thanks to oil from Venezuela)
the number of oxen teams had peaked - and that a major obstacle was the image problem.
Boyeros
, ox handlers, are held in low esteem and 'the biggest obstacles are cultural'.
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Could the reintroduction of teams of oxen ever be part of a panoply of responses to an
energy crisis in the UK? Perhaps if the crisis got bad enough, but any move towards a re-
vival of animal traction will probably start with horses. There are an estimated 1.35 million
horses in the UK, perhaps occupying two million acres (about five per cent of our agricul-
tural land), enough horsepower, were they all the right breed, to cultivate at least half of
function, other than keeping a rural population that has been wrenched away from the food
production process in contact with the animal kingdom, grass, muck, death and the forces
of nature. More horses are towed around the country by gas-guzzling four-wheel-drives
than are ever put between the shafts of a cart; and the NFU reports that obesity is becoming
as serious a problem for horses as it is for their masters.
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If energy conservation becomes an imperative there will be increasing pressure to ensure
that the UK horses pull their weight. And even though a proportion of the horse owning
population are dripping with money, and mistresses of the art of conspicuous consumption,
they all have a bit of gumption and I dare say they will rise to the occasion. The recent
trend for black and white gypsy cobs, which a few years ago were infra dig, suggests that
popular taste in horses is veering back towards animals with more of a draught build. The
British breeds of heavy horse are something of a Rolls Royce for the job (with a fuel con-
