Japan Agriculture and Cuba Agriculture

A fast check of the CIA factbook shows me that Cuba and Japan have roughly equivalent amounts of arable land.  Cuba is a third the size of Japan, but have about a third of the land arable, while Japan has about 10 percent.  John Phipps points to a piece on Cuba here, which includes the statement that Cuba imports 70 to 80 percent of its food. Meanwhile, Modern Farmer has a piece on Japanese agriculture after the Fukushima tsunami.

Though reforms instituted in the aftermath of World War II had drastically improved the California-size country’s self-sufficiency, the ensuing decades saw farmers abandoning the profession in droves. In 1965, 73 percent of the calories consumed in Japan were being produced there, compared with only 39 percent by 2010. During that same period, the area of land being cultivated had shrunk from 15 million to 11 million acres. The average age of a Japanese farmer climbed from 59 to 66 between 1995 and 2011.[emphasis added]

According to the CIA factbook, Cuba's population is 11 million, Japan's 126 million. Bottom line: Japanese agriculture is several times more productive than Cuba's.

Cuban Agriculture

Some, most recently Tom Philpott, have praised the Cuban agriculture system, its urban farming and organic agriculture. One thing to remember is Cuba is not self-sufficient, as this article indicates. It doesn't say what food is imported, but this article says:

Cuba has been importing food like rice and chicken from the United States since 2000, when cash-only food sales were permitted as a exception to the US trade embargo, turning Cuba's ideological foe into its top foreign supplier.

Cuba's food import agency, Alimport, this week signed new contracts worth $60 million with a delegation from the US state of Nebraska, to import mainly wheat, pork and soy beans.

I don't have a comprehensive picture of Cuban agriculture/food supply.