Food Security, Industrialized Agriculture, and a Changing Global Climate: Perspectives on the U.S. and Cuba

Abstract

This paper outlines the challenges of feeding a growing population in a time of climate change and in the shadow of the risks presented by industrialized agriculture. Part II presents an overview of current food insecurity and explores the likely exacerbation that will result from the impacts of climate change. Part III provides a comparison of the evolution of agricultural system sin the U.S. and Cuba. This part examines the environmental harms cause by industrialized agriculture in the U.S. and the limitations of U.S. environmental law to protect against these harms. This part then turns to the evolution of “agroecology” in Cuba and examines its benefits of such a system as they relate to climate change and food security. The paper concludes with a discussion of how Cuba, through its highly-developed agroecology, is poised to be a world leader in climate resilient agriculture and a low carbon economy.