Monthly Review | Cuba: A Terrorist Country?

Monthly Review | Cuba: A Terrorist Country?

Cuba: A Terrorist Country?

Published May 02, 2009

topics: Democracy , Human Rights  places: Cuba 

Thursday, April 30 was unlucky for the United States. On that day it occurred to them to include Cuba yet again on the list of terrorist countries. Committed as they are to their own crimes and lies, perhaps even Obama himself was unable to untangle himself from that mess. A man whose talent nobody denies must feel ashamed about the empire’s cult of lie. Fifty years of terrorism against our Homeland come to light in an instant.

What can one explain to those who know about the horrific event of a plane blown up in mid flight, with its passengers and crew, about the participation of the United States in the events, the recruiting of Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles, and the supplying of explosives, funds and the complicity of the intelligence agencies and the authorities of that country? How can one explain the campaign of terror that preceded and followed the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, the attacks on our coasts, towns, transport and fishing vessels, the terrorist actions inside and outside of the United States? How can one explain the hundreds of frustrated assassination plots on the lives of Cuban leaders? What can one say about the introduction of viruses such as hemorrhagic dengue and swine fever that genetically had never even existed in the hemisphere? I am merely mentioning some of the acts of terror in which the United States has played a part, the ones recorded in their own declassified documents. Don’t these events embarrass the current administration?

I could put together an endless list of abhorrent activities.

At our request, Bruno Rodriguez, Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent me the exact words used by a France-Presse reporter to ask him a question on April 30, along with his compelling answer.

Rigoberto Diaz, of AFP: “Coinciding with the final moments of this meeting and also on a subject that has been dealt with during this event, the US government has once more included Cuba on the list of countries sponsors of terrorism along with Sudan, Iran and Syria. I would like to hear your opinion on this.”

Bruno’s reply:

“We do not recognize any political or moral authority to the US government to make any list on any subject, or to “certify” good or bad behavior.

The Bush government was “certified” by world public opinion as a government violating international law; as being aggressive and war-mongering; as a government that tortures and that is responsible for extrajudicial executions.

“Bush has been the only president who has boasted in public, in the US Congress, about having carried out extrajudicial executions. That is a government which kidnapped people and transported them illegally, created secret prisons that nobody knows whether they are still in existence, and a concentration camp where torturing is going on in the part of territory usurped from the Republic of Cuba.

“In the matter of terrorism, the US government has historically held a long record of State terrorism acts, not only against Cuba.

“In the US, Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles are free to come and go; these two who are responsible for numerous terrorist acts including the blowing up of a civilian Cuban plane in mid-flight. There is no answer to Venezuela’s official request for the extradition of Posada Carriles who is being tried for various charges, but not as a notorious international terrorist.

“The US government held a travesty of a trial against the five young Cuban anti-terrorist activists who are today being held as political prisoners in its jails.

“The US government covers up acts of State terrorism committed by Israel against the Palestinian people and the Arab peoples. And, it kept silent before the crimes taking place in the Gaza Strip.

“Therefore one shouldn’t recognize that the United States has any moral authority whatsoever, and I, frankly, believe that nobody pays any attention or reads those documents, among other things, because the author is an international outlaw in many of the matters which it criticizes.

“Cuba’s position against all manifestations and forms of terrorism, wherever they may be committed, against any state that may be affected, in any form it may be carried out, for whatever purpose, is clear and consistent with its actions.

“Cuba has been the victim of terrorism for many years and it has a completely clean record in this matter. Cuban territory has never been used to organize, fund or execute terrorist acts against the United States of America. The State Department which issues those reports cannot say the same.”

This declaration, issued at the ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Countries, is not yet widely known by the population which in these days has been receiving plenty of news of all kinds. If the State Department wishes to discuss this with Bruno, there is sufficient information to bury it in its own lies.

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 2, 2009
7:12 p.m.

Selected books for organic farming

Organic (Ltd)






l
Classics
Cooking
Farming
Gardening
Reference
Warning



Agent OrangeCollateral Damage In Viet Nam


An Agricultural TestamentNature's methods of soil management


Encyclopedia of Organic GardeningThe complete guide to natural and chemical free gardening.


Farmers of Forty CenturiesPermanent agriculture in China, Korea and Japan


Natural Gardening in AustraliaCreating a garden that looks after itself.


Organic FarmingAn International History


Organic Gardening In AustraliaThe complete guide to natural and chemical free gardening


Our Stolen FutureHow we are threatening our fertility, intelligence and survival.


Permaculture OneA Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements


Silent SpringA fable for tomorrow


The Action of WormsThe formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms, with observations on their habits


The Australian Fruit and Vegetable GardenWhat's old is new.


The Natural Foods CookbookThe first book of natural foods recipes.


The Natural Way of FarmingThe theory and practice of green philosophy.


Transforming Food Production In CubaSustainable agriculture and resistance.

© 2016 Organic (Ltd)

Monthly Review | Cuba’s New Cooperatives

Monthly Review | Cuba’s New Cooperatives
Cuba’s New Cooperatives
by Cliff DuRand(Nov 01, 2017)


Topics: Labor , Movements , Political Economy

Places: Americas , Cuba


Two Havana residents tend to organic crops at ​Organopónico Vivero Alamar​, the capital’s largest and most successful agricultural cooperative. (​Source: Scene from “Voices of Transition”, a film by Nils Aguilar.)
Cliff DuRand is a research associate at the Center for Global Justice in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and coordinates its educational travel program in Cuba.

The decades since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have led socialists of many stripes not only to try to renew old principles and ideas, but to rethink the very foundations of socialism as it has historically developed. In particular, the state-centric model of what used to be called “actually existing socialism” has been widely questioned. Does true socialism require a centrally planned economy, hierarchically controlled and administered by the state? Or does it center on the empowerment of the “associated producers”? Is the immediate task of socialism to develop the forces of production, or the flourishing of human beings? Is there a place for markets in socialism? Is state property the only or highest form of socialist property? What about worker-owned and managed cooperatives?

The project to build a twenty-first century socialism has been most prominently associated with the late Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution, but fresh answers to these questions are also being sought in Cuba, the Zapatista areas of Mexico, and elsewhere. Though their circumstances vary widely, these contemporary socialist initiatives share certain values: the empowerment of civil society, democratic participation, decentralization, cooperation, and human development.

I want to try to conceive of these efforts in terms of the commons. Historians have long documented the ways that capitalism drew its early accumulation from the dispossession of commonly owned resources—a process that continues to this day, as David Harvey and others have pointed out.1 I conceive of the building of a socialist society and economy as a reversal of this process, a reclaiming of commons—that is, all those resources that contribute to human development and do so best when shared and governed democratically by a community.2 This includes not only the forests and fields of the pre-capitalist past, but also education and health care systems, parks and streets, waterways, and the shared culture, knowledge, and productive resources of a society.3

Capitalism seeks to enclose these and other resources, privatizing and commodifying them. From energy utilities to education to public land to technological innovations, in the era of rampant neoliberalism, everything is seen as fair game for capital.4 In the broadest terms, socialist construction is the process of socializing such resources, to bring or return them to the commons. The social is that which connects us with one another: to socialize an institution is to shape and direct it toward the common good.5 Socializing institutions means claiming them as our shared wealth, freely available to all and for the benefit of all. It is a transition toward what can be called commonism.

But common ownership alone is not enough. How can we ensure that the commons are democratically governed? Democracy depends on a collective agency, which in turn requires a collective identity.6 That is, the commoners must identify themselves as a community sharing a resource, and thus feel committed to its proper governance. A model well-suited to this democratic management of many forms of the commons, I believe, is the cooperative.

Today, as the Cuban Revolution moves away from the centrally administered state socialism of the last century, its leaders are seeking to socialize their institutions in a new way. Although in the 1960s the new Cuban government reclaimed the resources of society from capitalism, it did not fully socialize them. Instead, the state stepped in as the agent of society, in effect removing the people from active participation.7 A paternalistic state provided universal free health care and education, along with secure employment, and in return, the people gave the state their loyalty. But they have remained passive participants, rather than protagonists in a participatory democracy, shaping their own destiny. As a result, by the end of the twentieth century, it was civil society, rather than the state, that threatened to wither away.

Now the Cuban state is devolving power downward, to local levels of government and to cooperatives. While most property remains state-owned, where possible, its management is being transferred to those in actual possession of property. With management thus separated from ownership, the operation of small enterprises is placed in the hands of collectives of workers. Following the principle of “subsidiarity,” daily decisions are to be made at lower levels, with the support or supervision of higher levels where necessary. Through these reforms, the Cuban state is recreating democracy from the base of society upward, and the constituted power of the state is facilitating the constituent power of civil society.8

If socialist construction represents the incremental reclaiming from capital of resources that rightly belong to the commons, in the case of Cuba, those resources are being reclaimed from the state—with the state’s own active assistance. This can be seen most starkly in the conversion of state enterprises such as restaurants, factories, transportation services, and construction companies into cooperatives. Businesses that since 1968 had been run by the government are now being turned over to their former state employees, to be managed by the worker-owners of these businesses. As such, they are no longer controlled by the state through one of its ministries, although they may lease their facilities from the state. Instead, as independent social enterprises, they are responsible for their own profits and losses. After paying expenses and taxes and setting aside a reserve fund, profits are distributed among cooperative members. Initial studies have shown that average incomes among cooperative workers have increased by as much as three to seven times.9

A cooperative can thus be understood as a kind of labor commons.10 It is a commoning of labor among a group of workers who then consciously direct their efforts toward goods and goals shared both by them and the larger community. Cooperatives nurture a social personality: one’s daily worklife is based on cooperative social relations and an ethic of solidarity. Participation in collective decision-making promotes practices of social responsibility. Individual interest is linked to a common interest. It thus develops one’s social being, or as Marx put it, one’s “species being.” Cooperatives not only socialize work; they also socialize the worker. Cooperatives are little schools of socialism.

However, the socialization of workers into self-managed cooperatives does not occur automatically. It is a gradual process of learning, particularly when a cooperative is converted from a state enterprise previously defined by hierarchical relations between workers and management. Re-education is needed to break free from long-accustomed habits. For example, when I visited a formerly state-run sewing workshop in central Havana that makes guayabera shirts and dresses, the elected manager called her fellow associates “my workers,” even though she effectively answers to them in their monthly General Assembly meetings. Old habits run deep, and it appeared that the main change for her under the new model was that she no longer had to clear her decisions with higher authorities, and now enjoys some autonomy. For this reason, the country’s Institute of Philosophy conducts regular training workshops for new cooperatives, educating members and managers in practices of democratic self-management.

The situation is more propitious in new, self-organized cooperatives. There it is easier to create social relations afresh, understanding from the beginning that workers are united in a shared endeavor. El Biky restaurant is one such self-organized co-op. Authorized in February 2014, it was organized by a small group who leased a building from the state in central Havana, near the university. During the facility’s renovation (sponsored by a state-backed loan), others soon joined them as conscious members of a self-governing enterprise. Opened in November 2015, it now has two hundred members, who together operate a well-staffed restaurant, bar, and pastry shop where members can work half-time and still take home many times the pay that state workers receive.

During the last two years I have led delegations from the Center for Global Justice that have visited nine of these new urban cooperatives being established in Cuba. We investigated a transportation co-op that operates a fleet of buses, a furniture cooperative, a construction cooperative, and several restaurants. Hundreds more of these new urban co-ops have opened, forming a vital part of the emerging non-state sector of the economy. In addition, there are thriving small private businesses in personal services (e.g., beauty parlors) and hospitality, serving tourists (restaurants and rental rooms). Cooperatives offer a socialist alternative to both state employment and to working under a boss in a private business.

Cuban agriculture has long depended on cooperatives, but it was only in December 2012 that the National Assembly authorized urban cooperatives, on an experimental basis. While a comprehensive cooperative law was expected to be adopted in 2016, it is now hoped that will be possible by the end of 2017. The Cuban leadership, internally divided over these and other reforms, has been cautious in expanding the cooperative experiment. Many workers are said to be ready to form co-ops, but must wait for officialdom to catch up with the people.

Meanwhile, private businesses are growing rapidly. In nearly two hundred subsectors of the economy, Cubans are now allowed to pursue self-employment or cuentapropista, and private businesses can employ wage workers, also misleadingly called cuentapropistas. These are essentially petty-bourgeois enterprises—not yet capitalist, since they remain small and the owners themselves work there. Policy guidelines aim to avoid the accumulation of private wealth, preventing this nascent petty bourgeoisie from becoming a big bourgeoisie. For while not a capitalist class, they are clearly not inherently socialist either. Too often, small private business does not nurture a socialist consciousness, but the narrow individualism of the petty shopkeeper. As Raul Castro pointed out in his report to the Seventh Party Congress, “petty bourgeois ideology [is] characterized by individualism, selfishness, the pursuit of profit, banality, and the intensifying of consumerism.”11 With effective limits, taxation, and controls, a petty bourgeoisie may be compatible with socialism, but it is not socialist.

Cooperatives, by contrast, represent socialism in action in the everyday lives of workers and their communities. If a social order is to be sustainable over the long run, it needs to be rooted in the moral order, in the character of the people. Their shared values and sensibilities must be consonant with their institutions. In the longer term, cooperatives contribute to this socialist hegemony.12 Socialism requires not only a socialist state but a socialist people, and cooperatives nurture such a people.

In adopting new policies toward Cuba, President Obama sought to assist the development of private businesses in Cuba, as distinct from cooperatives.13 Whether President Trump will continue this effort to subvert Cuban socialism from within remains to be seen. In any case, Cuba’s leadership is alert to the corrupting influence of an unbridled private sector. The promotion of cooperatives in a vibrant socialist civil society can be a powerful protection against an emergent capitalism. Private business can be prevented from growing too large through progressive taxation and customs policies, and if a private business reaches a certain scale, it can be converted to a cooperative, so all employees can share in the profits and decision-making. This could be done through a radical version of Sweden’s famous Meidner Plan, whereby a percentage of profits would go into a workers’ fund representing equity in the business. In a matter of years, the workers could thus become owners and the business a cooperative. Hopefully some such way will be found eventually to socialize larger private businesses.

A new regulatory regime must be developed and enforced in the private sector. At the same time, Cuba can aggressively promote a socialist cooperative sector. By doing so, it can at once unleash the productive power of cooperative labor, raise living standards, and nurture the collective consciousness essential to socialist construction.
Notes

1. ↩David Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford University Press, 2003), 137–82.
2. ↩George Caffentzis, “Divisions in the Commons,” in Cliff DuRand, ed., Moving Beyond Capitalism (London: Routledge, 2016), 64–80.
3. ↩Michael A. Lebowitz, The Socialist Alternative (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010), 146–48.
4. ↩Anatole Anton, “Public Goods as Commonstock: Notes on the Receding Commons”, in Anatole Anton, Milton Fisk, and Nancy Holmstrom, eds., Not for Sale (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000), 3–40.
5. ↩Eric Olin Wright, “The Socialist Compass,” in Wright, ed., Envisioning Real Utopias (London: Verso, 2010), 110–49.
6. ↩Cliff DuRand, “The Possibility of Democratic Politics in a Globalized State,” in DuRand and Steve Martinot, eds., Recreating Democracy in a Globalized State (Atlanta: Clarity, 2012), 195–215.
7. ↩Michael A. Lebowitz, The Contradictions of “Real Socialism” (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012).
8. ↩Cliff DuRand, “The Dialectic of Constituent Power and Constituted Power,” in DuRand, ed., Moving Beyond Capitalism, 195–99.
9. ↩Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, “Cuba’s Cooperatives: Their Contribution to Cuba’s New Socialism,” in DuRand, ed., Moving Beyond Capitalism, 184–94.
10. ↩Marcelo Vieta, “Autogestion: Prefiguring a ‘New Cooperativism’ and the ‘Labour Commons,'” in DuRand, ed., Moving Beyond Capitalism, 55–63.
11. ↩Raul Castro, Report to Seventh Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, Granma, April 18, 2016, http://en.granma.cu.
12. ↩Olga Fernandez, “The Necessary Renovation of Socialist Hegemony in Cuba: Contradictions and Challenges,” in Cliff DuRand, ed., Moving Beyond Capitalism (London: Routledge, 2016), 179–83.
13. ↩Cliff DuRand, “US Policy on Cuba: From Regime Change to Systemic Change,” Truthout, January 8, 2015, http://truth-out.org.

2017, Volume 69, Issue 06 (November 2017)
Connect

Silent Spring A fable for tomorrow

Organic (Ltd)
Silent Spring A fable for tomorrow



First published in 1962, Silent Spring alerted a large audience to the environmental and human dangers of indiscriminate use of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Silent Spring became a runaway bestseller, with international reverberations.



Houghton Mifflin




To Albert Schweitzer who said ‘Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the Earth.’Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson




Summary of Silent Spring by Gino J. Marco in Silent Spring Revisited:

In the first several chapters, Rachel Carson stated that the large number of chemicals (approximately 500, many were pesticides) introduced each year was possibly making the earth unfit for all life. Insecticides were becoming deadlier and deadlier. Specialists were concerned only about efficacy and were losing sight of the overall picture. Before World War II, inorganic chemicals were the main pest controls. Arsenical were greatly used, and toxicological problems occurred.

Carson emphasized chlorinated hydrocarbons and organophosphates as the main problems leading to bird and fish kills, human nervous system disorders, and deaths. She noted that herbicides were at one time considered no problem to animals. She explored the possibility of surface and ground water contamination problems. She explained that water treatment plants did not remove chemicals because multiple chemicals in catch basins could interact to form toxic compounds, and thus cancer hazards from polluted waters would increase in the future.

Carson stated that chemicals treatment of soils led to the destruction of beneficial biological species, and that such destruction resulted in imbalance to the ecosystem. Also, wildlife that ate chemically killed worms also dies. She noted the long-term persistence of chlorinated hydrocarbons in soil and the possible transfer of chemicals into plants grown in such soils. She stated that government officials had aerially sprayed areas without notifying the public, and that these officials underestimated the safety problems of chemicals.

Carson highly praised the desirability and great potential of using biological controls in place of chemicals, as well as use of natural products and less toxic chemicals (e.g., pyrethrins). She pointed out that scientists’ and government officials’ concerns addressed only classical toxicity of pesticides and that no testing was done on effects to wildlife. Regarding residues in food, she stated that government protection through the Food and Drug Administration was minimal and that tolerances provided a false sense of security, because usually, only minimal safety data were available.

In human safety, Carson pointed out that exposure to or ingestion of various products, each at individually safe levels, taken together, could lead to health problems. Also, she described the concept of delayed physiological symptoms (e.g., mental problems and cancer). She also considered disruption of key metabolic pathways and mutations a high price to pay to have no mosquitoes. She stated that with safety knowledge increasing rapidly, what is safe today is not safe tomorrow. She cited tumors and leukemia brought on by carbamates, DDT, and aminotriazole as problems.

Carson discussed the resistance of insects to insecticides at length and indicated that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s solution at the time was to recommend more frequent sprays or greater quantities. She sated that DDT brought on the “age of resistance” and noted that chemical treatment was a treadmill that, once started, could not be stopped.

Carson concluded that our desire of total control of nature was conceived in arrogance.

Monthly Review | Cuban Urban Agriculture as a Strategy for Food Sovereignty

Monthly Review | Cuban Urban Agriculture as a Strategy for Food Sovereignty



REVIEW
Cuban Urban Agriculture as a Strategy for Food Sovereignty
by Christina Ergas(Mar 01, 2013)


Topics: Marxist Ecology

Places: Cuba , Latin America

Christina Ergas is a graduate student in sociology at the University of Oregon.
Sinan Koont, Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2011), 208 pages, $74.95, hardback.

The agricultural revolution in Cuba has ignited the imaginations of people all over the world. Cuba’s model serves as a foundation for self-sufficiency, resistance to neocolonialist development projects, innovations in agroecology, alternatives to monoculture, and a more environmentally sustainable society. Instead of turning towards austerity measures and making concessions to large international powers during a severe economic downturn, Cubans reorganized food production and worked to gain food sovereignty as a means of subsistence, environmental protection, and national security.1 While these efforts may have been born of economic necessity, they are impressive as they have been developed in opposition to a corporate global food regime.

In Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba, Sinan Koont indicates that most of the global South has lost any semblance of food sovereignty—the ability to be self-sufficient, to practice a more sustainable form of agriculture, and to direct farming toward meeting the needs of people within a country, rather than producing cash crops for export (187). The World Bank and International Monetary Fund imposed structural adjustment programs and free trade agreements on the so-called third world. These policies increased the influence of multinational corporations, such as Monsanto and Cargill, in global food production. They also encouraged large-scale monocultures, whereby food production is specialized by region for international trade. These policies threatened the national food security of countries in several interrelated ways.2

First, economically vulnerable countries are subject to the vagaries of the international marketplace, fluctuating food prices, and heavily subsidized produce from the global North that undermine the ability of the former to compete. Second, in a for-profit economic system, certain crops, like sugarcane, potato, and corn, are planted to produce biofuels, primarily ethanol, instead of food for poor populations. Rich nations that can afford to buy crops for biofuels inflate market prices for food, and when droughts or floods destroy whole harvests, then scarce food still goes to the highest bidder. Third, nations that specialize in cash crops for export must import food, increasing overall insecurity and dependency on trade networks. These nations are more vulnerable to changes in the costs of petroleum, as it influences expenses associated with transportation, fertilizers, pesticides, and the overall price of food. In countries with higher per capita incomes, increasing food costs are an annoyance for many people but not necessarily life threatening. In countries with high rates of poverty, price increases can be devastating. All of the above problems converged during the 2007–2008 food crisis that resulted in riots in Egypt, Haiti, Indonesia, Mexico, and Bangladesh, just to name a few.

People worldwide have been affected by these policies and have fought back. Some nations have taken to task corporations like Monsanto, as in the case of India’s response to genetically modified eggplant, which involved a boycott of Monsanto’s products and demands for the eradication of genetically modified foods.3 There are burgeoning local food movements, even in the United States, that despite numerous challenges attempt to produce food outside the current large-scale agricultural paradigm.4There are also international movements that are working to change agricultural policies and practices. For example, La Vía Campesina is an international movement comprised of peasants, small-scale farmers, and their allies. Their primary goals are to stop neoliberal policies that promote oligopolistic corporate control over agriculture and to promote food sovereignty.

In conjunction with these movements, Cuba has made remarkable strides toward establishing a system of food sovereignty. One of their most notable projects in this regard is their institutionalized and organized effort to expand agroecological practices, or a system of agriculture that is based on ecological principles and environmental concerns. Cuba has largely transformed food production in order to pursue a more sustainable path. These practices are not limited to the countryside.

Cuba is the recognized leader of urban agriculture.5 As Koont highlights, the Cuban National Group for Urban Agriculture defines urban agriculture as the production of food within the urban and peri-urban perimeter, using intensive methods, paying attention to the human-crop-animal-environment interrelationships, and taking advantage of the urban infrastructure with its stable labor force. This results in diversified production of crops and animals throughout the year, based on sustainable practices which allow the recycling of waste materials (29). In 2007, urban agriculture comprised approximately 14.6 percent of agriculture in Cuba. Almost all of urban agriculture is organic.

Cuba’s environmental protections and agricultural innovations have gained considerable recognition. The 2006 Sustainability Index Report, put together by the World Wildlife Fund by combining the United Nations Human Development Index and Ecological Footprint measures (or natural resource use per capita), contends that the only nation in the world that is living sustainably is Cuba.6 The island nation is particularly lauded for its strides in urban food production.7 Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba is the first book to take a comprehensive look at this practice around the entire island.

Koont indicates that the significance of urban agriculture in Cuba is that although Cuba is not completely food self-sufficient, it is the only example the world has of a country that produces most of its food locally, employing agroecological techniques for production. Furthermore, most of the food produced is for local consumption. As a result, Cuba has one of the shortest producer-to-consumer chains in the world. In this book, Koont documents the impressive transformations that have taken place within this nation.

While Cuba imports the majority of its calories and protein, urban agriculture has increased food security and sovereignty in the area of vegetable production. In 2005, Cuba was “importing 60 percent to 70 percent of what it consumes [mostly so-called bulk foods] at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion to $2 billion annually.”8 However, urban agriculture within and around Havana accounts for 60–90 percent of the produce consumed in the city and utilizes about 87,000 acres of land.9 Cubans employ various forms of urban agriculture, including gardens, reforestation projects, and small-scale livestock operations. In 2010, 75 percent of the Cuban population lived in cities—a city is defined as such if the population is in excess of 1,000 persons.10 Thus, urban food production is the most practical and efficient means to supply the population with food.

These transformations did not suddenly materialize. Koont provides a useful overview of the historical circumstances that contributed to changes in food production in Cuba. After the 1959 revolution and the subsequent imposition of the U.S. embargo, Cuba became reliant on the Soviet Union. Cubans used large-scale, industrial, monoculture to produce sugar, which was exchanged for Soviet petroleum and currency. The economy was largely tied to high-yield sugar production. In a vicious cycle, this type of agriculture required importing agrochemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and oil to run heavy machinery. In 1989, three times more arable land in Cuba was utilized to produce sugar for export than food for national consumption. Most of the Cuban diet came from imported food.11

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, Cubans and their economy suffered greatly. Cubans no longer had access to the inputs required to maintain large-scale agriculture, given how dependent such agriculture is on oil. To make matters worse, the end of trade between the Soviet Bloc and Cuba resulted in a loss of access to food, which reduced Cubans’ protein intake by 30 percent.12The system of agriculture that was in place was not sustainable or organized for self-sufficiency. Cubans refer to the ensuing period of resource scarcity as the Special Period in Peace Time. This period included shortages of food, fuel, and medicine. Faced with food scarcity and malnutrition, Cubans had to revamp their food production systems, which included collectively producing a variety of crops in the most efficient manner possible. Additionally, the necessary mission of Cuban politicians, ecologists, farmers, scientists, biologists, and farm workers was to mend the ecological cycles of interdependence that large-scale, exploitative agriculture destroyed.13

In spite of these hardships, Cuban society was equipped to contend with the ensuing crisis, given the country’s specific commitments and agroecological projects that were already in operation. The Cuban government and leadership worked to provide institutional support to re-direct food production and to enable the development of an extensive urban agricultural project. Governmental policies, following the 1959 revolution, that prioritized extending education, science, and technology served as a springboard for these new agricultural projects. First, the revolutionary government established organizations to address social problems and concerns. These organizations served as supply and distribution networks for food and centers for research that examined farmers’ traditional knowledge, continuing education programs that taught agroecological practices, distribution of technological innovations, and evaluation of existing programs and operations. Second, the government prioritized human resources and capabilities. Thus, the Cuban government invested in human capital by making education more widely available and accessible at all levels. Making use of the organizational infrastructure and investing in the Cuban people made the agroecological transition possible during the economic crisis in the early 1990s.

Koont examines how the early agroecological projects, prior to the Special Period, served as a basis for future development and expansion of the revolutionary transformation of agriculture in Cuba. Science is publicly owned and directed toward furthering human development, rather than capital accumulation. Cuba had the human resources to address food scarcity, given that they had 11 percent of the scientists in Latin America. Scientists were already experimenting with agroecology, in order to take advantage of ecological synergisms, utilizing biodiversity and biological pest control. These efforts were focused on diminishing the need for inputs such as artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Other projects included integrating animals into rotational grazing systems with crops and diversifying with polycultures. Cubans also began recycling sugarcane waste as cattle feed; the cows, in turn, excrete waste that is applied to soil as fertilizer, thereby restoring ecological interdependence. By combining manure with worm castings, Cubans were able to fertilize most of their crops organically without having to import fertilizer from long distances. Their experimentation also included creating urban organopónicos, which were constructed four years before the Soviet collapse. Organopónicos are raised beds of organic materials confined in rectangular walls where plants are grown in areas with poor soil quality. Additionally, personal household plots had long existed within urban areas.14 Altogether these experiments and projects served as the foundation to pursue greater self-sufficiency, a system of urban agriculture, and a more sustainable form of food production.

The pursuit of food sovereignty has yielded many benefits. Urban agriculture has increased food production, employment, environmental recovery and protection, and community building. Perhaps the most impressive strides are in the area of food security. In the early 1990s, during the Special Period, Cubans’ caloric intake decreased to approximately 1,863 calories a day. In the midst of food scarcity, Cuba ramped up food production. Between 1994 and 2006, Cubans increased urban output by a thousand fold, with an annual growth rate of 78 percent a year. In 2001, Cubans cultivated 18,591 hectares of urban land; in 2006, 52,389 hectares were cultivated. As a result of these efforts, the caloric intake for the population averaged 3,356 calories a day in 2005. During the economic crisis, unemployment sharply increased. However, the creation of extensive urban agricultural programs, which included centers of information and education, provided new jobs that subsumed 7 percent of the workforce and provided good wages.

Urban agriculture and reforestation projects also constituted important gains for the environment. Shifting food production away from reliance on fossil fuels and petrochemicals is better for human health and reduces the carbon dioxide emissions associated with food production. Urban reforestation projects provide sinks for air pollution and help beautify cities. Finally, local production of food decreases food miles. It also requires both local producers and consumers. Therefore, community members get to know each other and are responsible for each other through the production and consumption of food.

Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba is a detailed documentation of the agroecological transformation in Cuba. Koont delivers a significant amount of information regarding the mechanics of urban agriculture. He highlights the enabling factors of urban agriculture in Cuba, which are the government’s creation of the organizational infrastructure and their investment in human capital. He also provides an assessment of the results from urban agriculture. The results he discusses are gains made in food production, increased employment, environmental recovery and protection, and community building.

However, the majority of the book reads like a dry technical manual or guide to urban agriculture, something akin to official Cuban government documents. There are many bulleted lists throughout each chapter that outline types of crops grown, strategies, key features of urban agriculture in Cuba, collaborating organizations, evaluation criteria, tons of produce in each province, program objectives, and the lists go on. While the book contains a significant amount of information regarding process, extent, technology, education, and evaluation surrounding urban agriculture in Cuba, it does little in the way of setting up a theoretical framework and thoroughly exploring the significance of Cuba’s model of urban agriculture for the world. The introduction and the final chapter of the book are the two chapters that touch on Cuba’s relevance and implications. In addition, Koont offers minimal critical analysis of the challenges that Cubans still face in their quest for food sovereignty.

Despite these shortcomings, Koont provides a much-needed detailed account of the strides made in Cuban urban agriculture. Cuba’s example has clear implications for food sovereignty and security for the rest of the world. With the very real threat of climate change, potential energy crises, market fluctuations, worldwide droughts, or other economic and environmental problems that may force nations to relocalize food production, this example can serve as a template for future food sovereignty. We can continue to learn from Cuba as they generate new technologies and innovations in organic urban agriculture into the future. In addition, the Cuban example serves as a testament to the potential for a society’s resilience and is worth investigating not just for their innovations, but for inspiration.
Notes
↩ Koont defines food sovereignty as “the right of each people to define their own policies concerning agriculture, to protect and regulate their national agricultural production and markets with the aim of sustainable development, to decide to what extent they want to be self-sufficient in food, and to prevent their domestic markets from being inundated with subsidized products from other countries. The emphasis is on local, ecologically sustainable production of culturally appropriate, wholesome, and nutritive foods. Thus conceived, food sovereignty incorporates the concept of food security (adequate food supplies to meet the population’s needs) and even overlaps with national security” (187). Also see Daniel Whittel and Orlando Rey Santos, “Protecting Cuba’s Environment: Efforts to Design and Implement Effective Environmental Laws and Policies in Cuba,” Cuban Studies 37 (2006): 73–103.
↩ According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” See Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “World Food Summit: Rome Declaration on World Food Security,” November 13, 1996, http://fao.org.
↩ “India Blocks Sale of Monsanto GM Crop,” February 10, 2010, http://democracynow.org.
↩ Christina Ergas, “A Model of Sustainable Living: Collective Identity in an Urban Ecovillage,” Organization and Environment 23, no. 1 (2010): 32–54; Kathleen Masterson, “U.S. Sees More Female Farmers Cropping Up,” National Public Radio, March 30, 2011, http://npr.org.
↩ Adriana Premat, “Moving Between the Plan and the Ground: Shifting Perspectives on Urban Agriculture in Havana, Cuba,” in Luc J. A. Mougeot, ed., Agropolis: The Social, Political and Environmental Dimensions of Urban Agriculture (Sterling, VA: Earthscan and the International Development Research Centre IDRC, 2005), 153–186.
↩ Chris Hails, Jonathon Loh, and Steven Goldfinger, Living Planet Report 2006 (Gland, Switzerland: WWF–World Wide Fund For Nature, 2006).
↩ Nelso Companioni, et. al., “The Growth of Urban Agriculture,” in Fernando Funes, et. al., eds.,Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance (Oakland, CA: Food First Books, 2002), 220–236; Adriana Premat, “Moving Between the Plan and the Ground”; Rebecca Clausen, “Healing the Rift: Metabolic Restoration in Cuban Agriculture,” Monthly Review 59, no. 2 (2007): 40–52; Diana Raby, “Why Cuba Still Matters,” Monthly Review 60, no. 8 (2009): 1–13; Sinan Koont, “The Urban Agriculture of Havana,” Monthly Review60, no. 8 (2009): 11–20.
↩ “Cuba Reports Food Output Up 8.7 Percent in 2011,” February 16, 2012, http://reuters.com.
↩ Nelso Companioni, et. al., “The Growth of Urban Agriculture”; Adriana Premat, “Moving Between the Plan and the Ground”; Sinan Koont, “The Urban Agriculture of Havana”; Diana Raby, “Why Cuba Still Matters.”
↩ Oficina Nacional de Estadisticas (ONE) República de Cuba. “3.7 – Población Residente y Densidad de Población por Provincias, Según Zonas Urbana y Rural,” 2011, http://one.cu, accessed April 11, 2012.
↩ Also see Sinan Koont, “The Urban Agriculture of Havana.”
↩ Peter Rosset, “Cuba: A Successful Case Study of Sustainable Agriculture,” in Fred Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster, and Frederick Buttel, eds., Hungry for Profit (New York: Monthly Review Press 2000), 203–213.
↩ Also see Rebecca Clausen, “Healing the Rift.”
↩ Ibid.
↩ Adriana Premat, “Moving Between the Plan and the Ground.”

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Contribution of farmers' experiments and innovations to Cuba's agricultural innovation system | Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems | Cambridge Core

Contribution of farmers' experiments and innovations to Cuba's agricultural innovation system | Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems | Cambridge Core




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Volume 26, Issue 4
December 2011 , pp. 354-367

Contribution of farmers' experiments and innovations to Cuba's agricultural innovation system
Friedrich Leitgeb (a1), Fernando R. Funes-Monzote (a2), Susanne Kummer (a1) and Christian R. Vogl (a1)

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170511000251
Published online: 13 July 2011

Abstract


Innovations are the driving force for agricultural development under present diverse situations of uncertainty. The innovation system perspective acknowledges the contributions made by all stakeholders involved in knowledge development, dissemination and appropriation. According to the specific agricultural production system, farmers adopt innovations, modify them or innovate on their own. This paper examines the role of farmers' experiments and innovations in Cuba's agricultural innovation system (AIS), identifies knowledge exchange encounters and describes some strategies implemented to institutionalize farmers' experiments and innovations. The research methods comprised 34 semi-structured interviews with agricultural experts from the science, administration and advisory system, and 31 free list questionnaires to assess the institutional influence on farmers' experiments and innovations. In addition, three case studies of outstanding farmers' experiments are presented. The results suggest that the government's commitment to social participation in knowledge development provides the basic prerequisite for an effective integration of farmers' experiments and innovation in Cuba. The historically conditioned vertical structure of knowledge development and dissemination is gradually changing toward more horizontal procedures. The dynamic exchange of ideas at all kinds of interactive meetings, such as workshops or farmers' field schools, have favored farmer to farmer learning as well as knowledge sharing with research, academic and extension officials. This multi-stakeholders' approach contributes to institutionalize farmers' knowledge. Farmers' experiments and innovations play a major role in improving farm management and thereby can contribute to build resilience at the farming system level as well as for the national agricultural system.

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*Corresponding author: friedrich.leitgeb@boku.ac.at

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