URBAN GARDEN PROJECT CREATES  60,000 CUBAN JOBS

Havana--Some 60,000 people found work during the first quarter of 2001 with a new national agricultural program in Cuba.

In an urban gardening project sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, some 3,000 hectares of unused land were converted into urban gardens in most of the nation's cities, thereby providing tens of thousands of jobs.

In Granma province alone, which suffers from problems associated with depopulation, 12,000 jobs were guaranteed by the project.

Cuba's urban garden program was begun in the early 1990s to combat the serious shortage of food in the cities due to the lack of petroleum products to transport food in from the countryside. The gardens sprouted up everywhere -- fromschools, to community centers, to factories to army posts. Such is the successof the program that more than 50 percent of Havana's fresh produce is grownwithin city limits. No chemical fertilizers or pesticides are allowed inthe process.

SOURCE:   NY TRANSFER'S RHC NEWS
5 March, 2001