Like many in the Caribbean Brazilian photojournalist Eduardo Martino has a fascination with Cuba. Last year the London-based Martino made the trip to Havana - after Castro had gone in for treatment and later, out of the Presidency - to document ordinary Cubans attempting to solve food supply shortages and the looming worldwide increase in food prices: Urban farming.

Self-sufficiency is something that has been urged in Jamaica, most recently with Minister of Agriculture Chris Tufton’s infamous cassava remarks. In individualistic Jamaica Tufton was always unlikely to be heeded, but how were communitarian-minded Cubans coping, we asked Martino?

Q. What led you to this story?

I wanted to see and experience Cuba during this historical moment, when substantial changes may be about to take place. I wanted to explore a particular situation that would somehow symbolise how Cubans have been living their lives in recent times, at the same time grasping a little bit of the revolution’s legacy.

So, when a friend of mine came back from Cuba and told me about the urban farming phenomenon in Cuba I felt like going there and checking it out for myself. Especially because I am becoming increasingly interested about the issue of farming in the industrialised world. In Brazil this is a very hot subject, especially with the growth of biofuels internationally, which has been reflecting importantly in the Brazilian rural environment.

Q. How long did you spend in the country?

I only had the chance to spend two weeks in the field for this project. But before arriving in Cuba I did a lot of research and managed to arrange several visits and interviews with Cuban experts on the subject, as well as peasants. There was one family of academics in Havana that helped me a lot over the whole period, which was vital for me to find the important places in such a short visit.

Q. Does your Brazilian upbringing help you empathise with the Cubans?

I certainly felt a huge familiarity, all the time, everywhere I went - from people’s faces, with this typical ethnic combination between Mediterranean and African types, to the music and popular culture. But there was one thing in today’s Cuba that brought back some strong memories from Brazil in the 1980s and the early 90s when we had terrible economical problems with hyperinflation.

Brazil’s currency changed name five times, always accompanied by impacting structural adjustment packages designed to freeze inflation, but it never worked. The dollar was the only safe reference to guide prices, salaries, investments and so this led to our economy being indexed by the dollar.

The richest element in society managed to make profit from overnight investments and those without access to hard currencies became poorer. I recognised in Cuba many similarities in this regard: It’s like two economies going alongside, one for the ‘haves’ and another one for the ‘have-nots’, with the divisive wall being the access to foreign cash. And in both 80s Brazil and today’s Cuba, there’s this terrible feeling of frustration and disempowerment amongst ordinary people.

Q. In your time there were there food shortages? Were there people going hungry?

With the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1989 a dark period in Cuba’s history began, called by Fidel Castro the ‘Special Period’.

For the previous 30 years, Cuba’s sugar and other products had been exported at extremely favourable prices to its communist partners, while the island’s basic inputs for its highly mechanised agriculture - oil, machinery, fertilisers and pesticides - arrived at low prices.

Most of Cuba’s food also came from the Soviet Union and while this commercial relationship was in place, the consequences of the United States-imposed embargo were not so severely felt. But after 1989 the once healthy and educated population became hungry. I talked to many people who described how bad those days were. And that crisis was exactly what triggered the urban farming phenomenon, because since most people in Cuba live in cities and the fields had been ruined by decades of improper cultivation anyway, people had to find a solution to eat.

[At this point in its history Cuba legalised the US dollar and began encouraging tourism and remittances from abroad.]

Two decades later in 2006 Cuba’s urban farming is producing 4.2 million tons of food and employing 354,000 people. It’s also contributed to the establishment of a network of 1,270 points of sale of agricultural products and 932 agricultural markets.

So people are no longer facing starvation, also because tourism has been pumping strong currencies into the Cuban economy. But I was amazed to witness that the majority of Cubans, including some with access to tourism dollars, still rely on the rationed food provided by the state, which is seriously unreliable, with regular shortages of basic elements for a family’s healthy nutrition, such as eggs, milk or rice.

Q. How bad were the rises in food prices and were the Cubans able to check this?

I was in Cuba just before this very recent rise in food prices, so I didn’t have the chance to see how it’s been impacting on their economy. But what I had the opportunity to see was Cuba’s very particular system through which food reaches people’s tables. The model created right at the beginning of the revolution organised food supply to families via a rationed list of basic goods, to be collected all around the country in state-managed corner shops.

Each family has a booklet where monthly quotas are written down. With the Special Period, this system became very critical. Many people still rely on it, going through regular shortages of this or that product, but many are now able to buy vegetables for example from urban farmers directly. Obviously, not everybody can afford them. But since other relatively newly-introduced economic activities like tourism are bringing in money, more people are being able to supplement the rationed food via the free market.

As usual, the black market takes care of everything else that the official sources lack. But it seems to be a general struggle to make ends meet. For those making dollars from tourism, things are much better, as the foreign currency is about 20 times stronger than the local. So not only the products in pesos become dirt cheap for those with dollars in their hands, but the people involved with the dollar economy are able to buy products priced in dollars. However, they also struggle because some products sold in dollars in Cuba are more expensive than in Europe or the US. So what’s happening in Cuba today is obviously an aberration that at some point in the near future will need to be sorted out.

Q. Do urban farmers come from a variety of backgrounds, or is it down to necessity?

I guess now, after the serious threats of the early 90s are gone, people may decide to create an organoponico (hydroponic unit) in some unused plot of land somewhere as a complement for their basic food needs, but it certainly wasn’t the case when it was first put in place, when the need for basic nutrition was the driving force.

Q. Did you sense a strong sense of patriotism amongst the farmers?

Despite all the frequent criticism of the Cuban authorities for neglecting the rural farmers’ during the decades-long obstinate choice of sugarcane as the monocrop - which ruined the fields - the revolution managed to create highly educated generations of scientists. Even during the days when the Cuban agriculture was highly mechanised and employing all sorts of agrochemicals, there were people investing time and energy into research of organic and natural techniques to improve productivity and quality.

So when the crisis kicked in, this knowledge was very precious to equip the urban farmers with the basic skills needed to achieve success, because the urban farming in Cuba employs exclusively organic techniques while chemical inputs are banned. So even if farmers may criticise the wrong decisions from the past, which led to so much hardship, they will be equally proud of their capability to overcome the problems. And many will associate this fact with the Cuban exemplary educational standards, perhaps the revolution’s main achievement.

Q. Did you experience much evidence of change (communism-to-capitalism) while you were there? If so, was it more apparent amongst the young and how did this manifest itself?

The most obvious recent change in how products are traded in Cuba is the adoption of a foreign currency, the convertible dollars, to address the arrival of people with foreign cash, the tourists. When the Cuban authorities chose to open their doors to mass tourism out of pure economical need, they created this parallel economy, which, obviously, failed to be restricted to tourists only and is pretty much everywhere now.

But not everybody has access to the strong currency, creating this unbalanced society I mentioned before. This situation is even more striking when you think that only two decades ago this was a society where social inequality was officially banned.

Q. Lastly, what are you working on currently/next?

I am planning to spend a considerable amount of time in Brazil at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009. I am very interested about the Amazon and what’s happening in Brazil as a consequence of the recent boom in biofuels, as well as the high demand for those commodities that Brazil is a leading producer, such as soy or beef. There’s a lot of tension between conflicting parts in Brazil as a consequence of the direction our authorities are choosing to take in terms of the extremely profitable agribusiness. I intend to explore how this reflects to the ordinary people’s daily lives.

See more of Eduardo’s work here: www.eduardomartino.com, www.documentography.com

Our German friends at seen. tipped us off about Toddla T. T’s selected at a bunch of hipster clubs and makes solid, Dancehall-influenced music from unlikely Sheffield, North England.

But then again, foreigners’ obsession with the music goes far and sometimes do it better, if a little differently. His other influences include Zouk, Tropical and 2-step (Google them.)

Listen: HERE

First…Age and real name, please?
23, Tom Bell

(Obvious question) You’re from Sheffield, North of England…Why Dancehall?
Just influenced by surroundings I think, coupla deejays up here always throw Dancehall into their sets (and) it used to right excite me. But I don’t really consider my music straight-up Dancehall, it’s just heavily influenced along with a lot of other things.

Isn’t Dancehall a bit stale at the moment?
I ain’t heard too many hot new riddims to be honest wid ya - some good artists though.

It was Sound Tape Killin’ that caught our attention. How did you come up with that?
Just happened one day, like most of my music it ain’t really planned.

You have an album?
Not yet, soon though.

You work with any up-and-coming artists from over here?
No, everyone I’m working with is in the UK at this point but i would love to collaborate with some people from JA at some point.

You’ve been to Jamaica?
No, but I need too.

Why can’t Jamaica’s Luton Shelton get a run in the Sheffield United starting line-up?
He ain’t ready.

White Rastafarians or soap?
Soap

What do you think of Peter Tatchell?
Who?

The cartoonist of the Jamaica Observer newspaper, Clovis Brown’s daily musings have been distressing politicians since the 1980’s. Other times they are happily ordering their likenesses from him. Originally inspired by Conan the Barbarian - yes, the cartoon that was made into the Arnie movie - Clovis is really a nice guy who attracts the ladies due to his attentive ways. But still someone unafraid to draw a badman cop like Renato Adams posing in his briefs.

What led you to start drawing cartoons and how did you become a professional?

At schooI I used to do a lot of drawing in my exercise book and the kids used to carry their books to me and say, “Clovis, fill these up with drawing for me nah!”

I used to draw a large crowd at school.

After I finished school I used to draw cartoons to illustrate advertisements and once I did a cartoon of the political campaign and it went into the Gleaner and Oliver Clarke saw me and invited me over in like 1989. And then the Observer came along and I got a better offer from them, in their second year which was…1994.

What weren’t you good at?

I wanted to do graphics, I love graphics, I love design but back then people wanted illustrations: A man come and say “The type’s here and I want the drawing here,” so I say, “Alright, I just drop in the cartoon.”

That’s it basically. I wanted to be a graphic designer.

You don’t like politicians, do you?

Uhm…when they know they are wrong and they are trying to cover it up that’s when I get them! I tell you man you cant trust them man. That’s why I hate them, yes man! [LAUGHS]

You think our politicians lack a sense of humour?

Yeah there is lack of humour when you are touching them. When it’s not them in trouble and they are in the picture or it says something good about them, then they will ask to buy it. Oh boy…it’s happened often.

What other use do politicians have apart from being used for cartoons?

In my world they can be good but you see I like a leadership that is…uplifting! If you are a leader you should try to be a figurehead of where we are going and of discipline and order.

How much of your life do you live through your cartoons?

My whole life is drawing. I’ve been drawing from five scribbling them time doing a lot of comics and stuff.

Did anyone inspire you?

Yes there was this guy who drew Conan, I love his art and I used to redraw his drawings, this fellow by the name of John Buscema. Those days, comics were the ting, like video games are the ting now.

How old are you?

Uh, born ‘61. What 40 years old or something like that?

What is the real Clovis like?

Fun loving. Love girls. Fun and love to joke but also quiet.

Women tolerate you?

No. Boy. Yes! They like me cos I’m a caring person, always caring about how they sleep, how they eat, asking about how they go through life - that’s what they love about me.

People ever pressure you about your cartoons?

Yeah man but I love that because I learned that at Gleaner: You don’t answer them you just move. You don’t answer that! Yeah man I used to get threats a lot, since lately not much threats, but you cant trust nobody but people cuss me about drawing the People’s National Party (PNP). It’s one of them tings (He says JLP supporters used to harangue him equally) where you just have to clear your mind.

How do you respond?

I don’t respond.

Is it fair having Omar Davies in a dunce hat…some say Audley Shaw’s not so smart?

But Audley can’t be duncer when he’s just got into power! It’s not even six solid months and this man has been there three terms, so who would you call duncer?

Why are you so fussy about A/C?

I love to be cool when I am working. When I’m cool that’s when I think and if I start to feel sweat and I feel miserable and if I get up I lose that illustration. As an illustrator you can’t just get up, you have to complete what you are doing first. It’s the hardest thing to come back to.

What is your favourite cartoon and why?

With Edward Seaga and Ryan Peralto with the gold chains around their necks. Those were the times when I was as at Gleaner and I continued it here when I came to the Observer. Because Seaga mentioned that he was the Don and as Peralto was his sidekick, I drew both of them with a gold chain.

You know Las May? You ever meet up socially?

Yeah man. He was at the Star when I was at the Gleaner (both newspapers have the same owner).

Are cartoonists weird?

Uhm no. Not like lawyers.

What would you do if you weren’t a cartoonist?

I don’t know. I love to be alone when I’m working because I don’t know what else I would have chosen. I love to watch how things work so maybe I could have been an engineer.

What do you like best about your job?

I like it when people advise me and suggest ideas to draw.

Any negatives?

It carries a lot of legal things and I hate that. I have a case now…about two cases defamation of character and all those rubbish.

You have fans?

Yes. They write me and give me some ideas, “Clovis wha’ happen!”

clovistoon@gmail.com