In "eat local" movement, Cuba is years ahead

The gardens sell their produce directly to the community and, out of necessity, grow their crops organically.

"Urban agriculture is going to play a key role in guaranteeing the feeding of the people much more quickly than the traditional farms," said Richard Haep, Cuba coordinator for German aid group Welthungerhilfe, which has supported these kinds of projects since 1994.

When the Soviet Union fell apart, Cuba's supply of oil slowed to a trickle, hurting big state agricultural operations. Chemical fertilizers were replaced with mountains of manure, and beneficial insects were used instead of pesticides.

Unlike in developed countries, where organic products are more expensive, in Cuba they are affordable.

"We have taken organic agriculture to a social level," said Salcines.

Some experts fear that rising international food prices along with the destruction of the hurricanes will return Cuba to the path of agrochemicals. The government is planning to construct a fertilizer plant with its oil-rich ally Venezuela.

But Raul Castro, who replaced ailing brother Fidel Castro as president in February, has also borrowed ideas from the urban gardens as he implements reforms to cut the island's $2.5 billion in annual food imports, much of it from the United States.

Castro has decentralized farm decision-making and raised the prices that the state pays for agricultural products, which has increased milk production, for example, by almost 20 percent.

And, in September, the government began renting out unused state-owned lands to farmers and cooperatives, measures that met with approval of international aid groups.

"Decentralization and economic incentives. If those elements are expanded to the rest of the agricultural sector, the response will be the same," said Welthungerhilfe's Haep.

(Reporting by Esteban Israel; Editing by Jeff Franks and Eddie Evans)