Farmland such as this will now be leased to farmers. Gerry Vandermaesen (flickr)

Since he was officially sworn in as Cuba's president in February, Raul Castro has been busy giving back to his constituents in ways his brother never did — allowing Cubans to hold licenses for private taxis, stay in tourist hotels and own a cell phone.

But these are primarily symbolic changes. After all, many Cubans can't afford to purchase a cell phone or pay for a night at a hotel. The average monthly wage is only $20. Two of the most recent reforms, however, are potentially dynamic: the opportunity for farmers to lease state-owned land and for workers to earn production bonuses beyond their state-set salaries.

The land reforms are a response to rising global food prices. Castro recently estimated that the country would pay an extra $1 billion in food imports — enough for him to declare the food crisis a national security threat. Cuba has plenty of empty farmland left to cultivate: half of state-owned farm land is covered with weeds, according to estimates. The idea is that giving farmers an incentive to plant some of this land should reduce the need for costly food imports.

Then there's the new system of bonuses laid out by the country's vice-minister for labor, Carlos Mateu. "Writing in the communist party newspaper Granma Mr Mateu said workers would receive a minimum 5 percent bonus for meeting targets but with no ceiling on salaries," the BBC reported. "The minister pointed out that the current wage system sapped employees' incentives to excel since everyone earned the same regardless of performance."

These are revolutionary ideas in Cuba, a socialist system built on the egalitarian ideal. Last month Raul Castro challenged the governmental mindset when he said,"egalitarianism is not convenient."

When Cuba's president speaks out against the very foundation of a 49-year-old government system, it's hard not to believe that real change is happening.

In the future, farms will line the cities' skylines. Photo: Editrix, Curbed SF (flickr)

In the future, farming on expansive tracts of rural land will give way to 30-story-high self-sustained, temperature-controlled, organic farms that are only a city block away.

You might be thinking that this is a far-fetched idea from some science-fiction novel, but in fact it’s the very real brainchild of Professor Dickson Despommier from Columbia University. Along with some of his graduate students, Despommier came up with this idea for “vertical farms" in 1999.

Despommier believes that he has devised the perfect solution to the growing food, water and energy crisis: bringing farms to where a majority of the population lives — cities. Building farms vertically will save land and increase the world’s agricultural output.

Despommier envisions vertical farms as multi-leveled greenhouses that are built to skyscraper proportions. His website is full of charts and graphics and presentations — many produced by his graduate students — that presumably show how vertical farms will be able to produce food not typically found in greenhouses, like corn, wheat and even rice. The entire community will be engaged in the project, with a farmer’s market in the building and possibly even a restaurant.

This new type of farming has numerous advantages over more conventional methods. The most obvious advantage is that vertical farms will have year-round production with no worry of weather-related crop failure. They are also more environmentally friendly because there will be no plows, tractors, or shipping necessary. Furthermore, Despommier designed these farms to use alternative energy as their main source of power.

The project is still very much in its developmental stage, but the most up-to-date plans and designs are available on the project’s website.

Planners in cities like New York and Portland see great potential behind the idea and have already started developing vertical farm proposals. Having skyscraper farms in our cities might not be too far away after all.

Condoms prevent transmissions of disease, and could be key to population control. Photo: Rampant Gian (flickr)

CIA director Michael Hayden recently identified one of the biggest threats facing the U.S., something that occurs over 215 million times a day — sex.

“Population is the essential multiplier for any number of human ills," Hayden said recently. He said overpopulation in the poorest parts of the world is causing global political instability and extremism, climate change, and the food and fuel crises.

In the 1970s, environmentalists frequently discussed the problems of overpopulation, but in the last 30 years, rigid population control has been condemned.

Robert Engleman, vice-president at the Worldwatch Institute and author of the new book More: Population, Nature and What Women Want, says that after China's controversial one-child policy, "Environmentalists came to realize how complicated and sensitive this issue was.”

As food and fuel prices rise, so do concerns that the planet’s limits are finite. Population growth has slowed in developed countries, but is still rising in much of the developing world. With climate change forcing a fresh look at overpopulation, Engleman’s new book argues that “the key to limiting population growth is to give control over procreation to women.”

What Engleman is suggesting is not feminism, it’s just common sense. He says that even in societies with traditionally large families, when women gain control over family sizes with contraception access, birth rates shrink.

Fifty-year-old Linganni, who earns $2.50 a week sweeping streets in Burkina Faso, would certainly agree that too many children and not enough food is a problem. In an article that discusses how the food crisis is hitting women the hardest, The Washington Post describes how her 25 children share one meal a day. And Linganni always eats last.

In his recent article "What Condoms Have To Do With Climate Change", Time's Bryan Walsh suggests the best policy for the U.S. would be “vigorous foreign aid that helps make contraception safe, reliable and accessible in every country — too often women in the developing world who want to use contraception, can't get it.”

Contraceptive aid from the U.S. may be a difficult sell, considering that Americans are still obsessing over abstinence-only sex education and holding father-daughter purity balls. And around the world, contraception is often taboo, and the decision whether to use it is up to the man.

One solution is to support forms of contraception that give women control and are invisible to men, like the Pill or IUDs. But whatever the approach, women need to have control over the number of kids they have. Population control will only happen, Engleman reminds us, when "women are in charge."

Sleeping in airports just got more comfortable with the Mini Motel. Photo: Nibaq (flickr)

If you've ever spent the night in an airport, you know trying to sleep crouched down in the hard airport chairs is excruciating. And as airlines try to cut costs by eliminating hotel vouchers, painful and sleepless nights are becoming more common.

But one frequent flier has devised a solution. Frank Giotto’s new Mini Motel comes with everything you need to sleep comfortably for a night. The Mini Motel, which sells for $49.95 including shipping, is a one-person tent that comes with an air mattress, pillow, bed sheet, alarm clock, reading light, toothbrush, toothpaste, ear plugs, and eye shades. And it all folds down into a package about the size of a laptop.

And it’s not just for airports.

The Mini Motel can also be used by emergency organizations as a cost-effective replacement for emergency cots. They accommodate more people, require less storage space, and add the benefit of privacy.

For displaced people, disaster relief workers, or just a painful night in the airport, Mini Motels could prove to be very useful.