Local Food, Sustainability, and Cuba's National Food Program

Abstract

There is a tendency in food systems research and planning to associate sustainable and socially just food provisioning with the local scale. This thesis questions the assumption that food security and environmental sustainability are best achieved through small scales of organization. I examine the relationship between scale and food provisioning by applying scale and politics of scale theory to a case study of Cuba's food system. I analyze several historical periods leading up to and including the Special Period which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the Special Period Cuba's food system was focused on achieving national food security and environmental sustainability. Analysis of the Special Period focuses on changes that occurred at multiple scales. The thesis concludes with ideas about how to move beyond the argument for rescaling and forward to a discussion of how to actually create food provisioning systems that are sustainable and just.