Cuba became the pre-eminent producer of sugarcane during the early twentieth century through the development of input-intensive, industrial sugarcane plantations. Pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary plantations became extraordinarily reliant on imported inputs like chemical fertilizers to support high levels of production. Favorable trade deals with Soviet bloc countries assured Cubans of a market for their high-priced sugarcane. With the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s, this market disappeared, and Cuba no longer had the foreign exchange it needed to purchase foodstuffs for Cuban citizens and chemical fertilizers for sugarcane plantations. Cuban citizens responded to the dearth of food through repeasantization. People began cultivating gardens in cities, and the state began to encourage the creation of small farms. Agro-ecological farming became the favored method of agricultural production because it did not require expensive, imported chemical inputs.
Dropping Out of Socialism: The Creation of Alternative Spheres in the Soviet Bloc. Ed. Juliane Fürst and Josie McLellan. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017. vii, 343 pp. Bibliography. Index. $100.00, hard bound.
