Please circulate this announcement widely -- thank you

INVITATION

Dear Compañeros:

Cuba offers us the world's most important example of organic farming
and sustainable agriculture on a large scale. It is an example that
everyone else can benefit from. By studying what Cubans have done, we
can learn important lessons for other countries. Read more at
http://www.desal.org.mx/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=20.

We are pleased to extend an invitation to participate in a research
delegation to study Cuba's remarkable advances in organic farming and
sustainable agriculture, this coming May 2006.

The delegation and study tour will take place May 3-8, 2006, and is
timed to immediately precede three conferences on sustainable
agriculture, organic farming farming and agroecology, which will be
held in Havana on May 8-13, 2006. Participants are invited to stay on
for these conferences.

Participation in the delegation is open to people of all nationalities
with a professional interest in agriculture, and who wish to
participate in a group research and fact-finding delegation.

Farmers, farm and farmworker leaders, researchers, academics, students,
teachers, professors, journalists, NGO-, non-profit- and donor agency-
staff, policy makers, activists, and others may participate. We
strongly encourage funders to consider offering scholarships to their
grantees to be able to participate in this unique opportunity to learn
lessons from the Cuban experience that can help participants develop
innovative approaches in their home countries.

For non-Spanish speakers, we provide Spanish-English interpretation as
part of an overall package that includes trip/research leaders who are
experts on both sustainable agriculture and on Cuba. People who do not
speak English or Spanish should bring their own translator(s).

See full details (cost, application, on-line deposit, etc.) on the
delegation and how to sign up at:
http://www.desal.org.mx

Read more about Cuba's advances in sustainable agriculture at:
http://www.desal.org.mx/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=20

Contact us at:


We hope you will join us,


Sincerely,

Peter Rosset, Catherine Murphy & Maria Elena Martinez
Trip Organizers - Alternative Development (DESAL), Mexico


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Alternative Development, or Desarrollo Alternativo (DESAL), is a
Mexico-based, non-profit organization devoted to research, outreach,
education and project implementation concerning alternative development
practices.