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Innovative farm sustains Christian center


From PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>
Date 16 Apr 2002 14:20:59 -0400

Note #7129 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

16-April-2002
02146

Innovative farm sustains Christian center

Fruits of agricultural Eden include jobs, nutrition and cash

by Jerry L. Van Marter

CARDENAS, Cuba - In a country where everything tends to look like rubble, these neat rows of raised soil beds look almost like Eden.

The rich dark dirt of this 30-acre farm on the outskirts of this coastal city is the life-blood of the Christian Center for Reflection and Dialogue, a non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) founded by Cuban Presbyterians.

The center and its director, the Rev. Raimundo Garcia, a pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Cuba, played host this month to a meeting of the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

The Christian Center's farm, about 60 miles east of Havana, fights hunger of two kinds -for food and for peace.

The farm provides employment for local workers, food for a number of institutions and much-needed income for the Center, whose mission is "to provide a pastoral perspective as we cooperate in seeking solutions for different kinds of conflicts through reflection, social service and reconciliation dialogue."

The Center's motto - "If we are not part of the solution, then we are part of the problem" - is the key to its good relations with the government of Cuba.

"It is no secret that we are here because the government cannot afford to support all the needs of our community," says Fredy Rodriguez, Garcia's son-in-law, a member of the Center's staff. "They do not support us financially and are jealous of us, but we have generally good relations with the government, because they know we do good work."

The Center employs 70 people, nearly half of whom work on the farm, which is an important source of income for the program. It also is supported by donations from overseas partner churches and humanitarian organizations (most of them in Germany), and from visitors who stay in the Center's comfortable guest quarters and participate in its study and dialogue programs.

The farm is a marvel of simple but effective technology. A variety of crops are grown in raised, stone-bordered beds, in soil enriched by extensive composting and irrigated with water from a nearby well.

The pigs, chickens, beef cattle and sheep on the farm provide protein and also produce manure that is percolated in an underground tank to produce methane gas to be used as fuel in the farm kitchen. Nothing is wasted.

The Cuban government owns the land, but the Center occupies it rent-free and is permitted to keep what it produces, "because we donate all the food and proceeds to humanitarian projects," Rodriguez says.

Some of the meat, eggs and produce go to local institutions such as schools and hospitals, and the Center serves 160 hot meals a day to the poor and elderly. The rest of the farm's yield is sold to the government, generating cash for the Center.

One interesting feature of the Center's farm is its extensive cultivation of medicinal plants, for which Cuba is famous. Medical researchers travel to Cuba from all over the world to study the country's medicinal plants and cultivation methods.

Medicinal plants are a necessity in Cuba.

"The health system is free," Rodriguez says, "but there are no medicines, because of the embargo."

In a country where life can be hopelessly complicated, the Christian Center for Reflection and Dialogue tries to keep it simple: "Our goal," Rodriguez says, "is to serve the poorest of our people, while providing Christian perspectives on Cuba's problems."
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