The concrete sprawl of Havana seemed an incongruous setting for Consuelo Torres to be clutching a clump of organically grown and freshly picked spinach. But she had just been shopping at one of the many state-run urban vegetable gardens developed in vacant lots in the capital and in other cities and towns across Cuba.
哈瓦那蔓延的水泥叢林，似乎並非康綏蘿‧托瑞斯抓一把有機種植、新鮮採收菠菜的理想地點。但她剛剛才在首都哈瓦那及古巴其他城市和鄉鎮空地上開發出來的無數國營都市菜園裡買菜。
The gardens are part of a new effort by the socialist government to ease food shortages and nutritional problems that have beset the nation since the collapse of its patron, the Soviet Union, in 1991.
這些菜園是這個社會主義政府緩解食物短缺和營養不良問題的一項新措施。自從其靠山前蘇聯於1991年解體後，古巴一直為這些問題困擾。
"Being able to buy more vegetables is a health issue. Now we can take in more of the vitamins our bodies need and give a little more balance to our diets," Torres, 50, said while standing on Havana's busy Fifth Avenue in front of a plot of crops in what used to be a garbage dump. "There is still not enough food to go around, but the gardens certainly help the situation."
「能買多一點蔬菜是個健康問題。現在我們可以攝取身體所需要的更多維他命，同時使飲食更加均衡一點，」50歲的托瑞斯說。她正站在哈瓦那繁忙的第五街一塊農地前，這裡過去曾是垃圾場。「我們還是沒有足夠的食物可以分配，但菜園的確可以協助改善現況。」
This Caribbean island has what is believed to be the most extensive urban agriculture program in Latin America, with more than 7,000 government operated gardens checkering the country's 169 municipalities. They employ about 22,000 workers and sell two dozen varieties of vegetables and herbs directly to consumers at prices as much as half that of market levels.
古巴這個加勒比海島國據信擁有拉丁美洲面積最廣的都市農業計畫，7千多個國營菜園遍布全國169個都會區。他們請了約2萬2千名工作人員，負責直銷二、三十種蔬菜草藥給消費者，售價只有市場價格的一半。
"Having these gardens set up in the city is a form of creative help," 55-year-old Juana Vega said. "It is creative on the part of the government, which I feel is trying to find ways to solve Cuba's problems and improve our lives where they can."
「在都市裡闢菜園是一種創意的協助方式，」55歲的胡安娜．維嘉說。「政府方面很有創意，這讓我覺得政府有心解決古巴的問題，並盡其所能改善我們的生活。」
This country of 11.2 million people has been forced to pursue unconventional food production since the former Soviet Union stopped its annual largess of billions of dollars two decade ago. The donations from Moscow included bountiful amounts of agricultural products and farming supplies, such as fertilizer, pesticides, animal feed, seeds and fuel.
自從前蘇聯20年前開始停止每年數十億美元的物資援助後，古巴1120萬人口，被迫尋找非傳統的食物生產方式。莫斯科當局捐贈的物資包括大量農產品和農耕用品及設備，像肥料、農藥、動物飼料、種子和燃料。
The vegetables grown in urban gardens are for the most part organic, largely due to the dearth of chemical crop treatments. While playing up the health benefits of organic produce, the Cuban government casts much of the blame for food scarcities on a 47-year-old economic embargo maintained by the United States. But the problem also stems from inefficiency and a lack of individual incentives within the state-dominated agricultural system.
都市菜園所種的多半是有機蔬菜，主要因為缺乏作物化學處理措施。古巴政府一方面鼓吹有機作物的健康效益，一方面把糧食短缺的責任，全怪到美國長達47年的經濟禁運制裁上。但這個問題也源自國有農作體系缺乏效率及個人誘因。
In contributing to the slightly improved food situation, the urban gardens--called agroponicos or organoponicos--have been able to circumvent many of the logistical hurdles and other problems that afflict agriculture in the countryside. There is no need to transport vegetables grown on these municipal plots because people buy them on the spot. That eliminates virtually all the cumbersome state bureaucracy that usually stands between farmers and consumers.
這些都會菜園或都會有機菜園，對改善糧食情況略有助益，同時也得以避免在鄉下耕種衍生的很多後勤障礙及其他問題。至少沒必要運送這些在都會農地所種的蔬菜，因為人民可以就近在產地購買。這幾乎消除了橫在菜農和消費者之間所有官僚機構的繁瑣規定。
More than 200 gardens in Havana supply its citizens with more than 90 percent of their fruit and vegetables. Yields have more than quintupled from 4 to 24 kilograms per meter squared between 1994 and 1999, and currently around a million tons of food per year is produced in the organopnicos.
哈瓦那2百多個菜園供應市民90%以上的果蔬，1994到1999年，每平方公尺產量平均從4公斤增加5倍以上達24公斤，目前每年約有一百萬噸食物產自這些都會農地。
"This means fewer post-harvest losses because no transportation or storage is involved and there is less handling of vegetables," said Fernando Robayo, former representative in Cuba for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. On weekends in Havana, long lines spill onto the sidewalks in front of urban gardens, where customers wait to buy vegetables that are fresher and apparently more bountiful than in state markets, which on any given morning can run out of produce in a matter of hours.
「由於不用運送或倉藏，處理蔬菜的流程減少，這代表收成後的損失降低，」聯合國糧農組織古巴前代表羅巴約說。每逢周末，哈瓦那都市菜園前面的人行道就會出現長長的人龍，消費者等著買更新鮮的果蔬，賣相顯然比國有市場漂亮，任何早上，這些市場的農產品往往不到幾個鐘頭就賣個精光。
The urban gardens, which are equipped with relatively modern irrigation systems that help generate high yields, have been one of the most successful of a series of government initiatives to decentralize agricultural production from large state farms to municipal and individual levels. Many state enterprises, schools and hospitals grow some of their own food and raise livestock, while the government has helped thousands of families and individuals to set up home gardens, plant fruit trees and raise chickens and rabbits.
都市菜園灌溉系統多半比較現代化，有助於提高產量，這也是政府欲將農業生產下放地方的系列措施中最成功的一個，也就是從大型國有農場下放到市鎮及個人層級的農場。很多國企、學校和醫院也紛紛自行耕種生產糧食及飼養家畜，政府則幫助數以千計的家庭和個人成立家庭菜園、種植果樹、飼養雞兔。
"These gardens are important in a labor sense. They are not cooperatives and they are not completely state run in that we can pay workers a little more," explained Alvaro Garcia, who is in charge of an urban garden in the Miramar section of Havana.
「這些菜園就勞動人口而言很重要，他們不完全是產銷合作社，也不盡然是國有農場，我們可以多付員工一點酬勞，」哈瓦那米拉瑪都市菜園負責人賈西亞解釋說。
Photo (REUTERS) shows a woman working in an urban garden in Havana August 11, 2009. Cuba's urban agriculture movement, developed in the 1990s as a response to the food crisis after the collapse of its former benefactor the Soviet Union, provides over 50 percent of the vegetables Cubans eat.
圖（路透）中一名婦人8月11日在哈瓦那的都會菜園工作。古巴1990年代發起農業都會化運動，以因應其靠山前蘇聯解體後所產生的糧食危機，這些都會中的耕地提供古巴人民每天食用蔬菜的一半以上。