Cuban Agriculture and Food Sovereignty

The Collectivization of Land and Cooperative Production

In 1993, relying upon the principles of food sovereignty, Cuba accomplished a radical land reform that revolutionized its entire agrarian structure. The reform was a by-product of the Special Period conditions under which Cuba had no choice but to undertake agroecological restructuring. Prior to that reform the Cuban agrarian structure was dominated by the state sector, which greatly depended on the activities of large state farms controlling 74.3 percent of agricultural land (Alvarez, 2004: 44). Capital-intensive and large-scale agricultural practices had had serious socioeconomic and ecological consequences: overspecialization, monocropping, excessive intensification and dependence on external inputs, large-scale deforestation, salinization, erosion, compaction, fertility loss of soils, and heavy rural-urban migration. This model of agrarian development suffered from high levels of inefficiency and dependency on the international socialist system, which in turn aggravated the dependence of the Cuban economy on massive amounts of food imports. In the prereform era, 57 percent of the country’s total consumption of calories depended on imports of petroleum, equipment, agricultural inputs, and foodstuffs. More than 30 percent of arable land was reserved to the production of sugarcane, which had both reduced Cuba’s agricultural diversity and contributed to the dependency on food imports (Benjamin and Rosset, 1994: 3; Cruz and Medina, 2003: 3; Mansata, 2008: 10). Similarly, before the collapse of the international socialist system, 69 percent of the domestic consumption of cereals, 99 percent of grains, 21 percent of meats, 94 percent of fats, and 38 percent of milk and its derivatives originated in Cuba’s economic relations with the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON). Following the demise of the international socialist system, Cuba experienced a decline of nearly 30 percent in the volume of its foreign trade, with a drop of more than 60 percent in the import of pesticides, 77 percent in the import of fertilizers, and 50 percent in the availability of oil for agriculture. Food imports dropped by more than 50 percent (Benjamin and Rosset, 1994: 3–4, 20; Lopez, 1999: 23), and, in consequence, daily calorie consumption per capita declined from 2,728 in 1990 to 1,863 in 1993 (Cruz and Medina, 2003: 4). According to Miguel Angel Salcine López, the head of the UBPC Organopónico Vivero Alamar, while 80 percent of the Cuban population lived in urban areas only 12 percent of the rest of the population were involved in agricultural activities when the crisis erupted, and the scarcity of farmers contributed significantly to the deepening of the crisis. Given the high levels of urbanization, urban unemployment, and food insecurity in cities, Cuba had to adopt a new land policy promoting local agriculture.

After the agroecological restructuring, 92 to 94 percent of Cuban agricultural production would depend on low-input agricultural practices that to a great extent immunized the Cuban peasant communities against price drops in food, oil, and raw materials and against environmental contamination (Botella-Rodríguez, 2010: 28). The balance of power in the Cuban countryside shifted with the establishment of UBPCs in favor of the small peasantry.

The UBPCs are in essence local agrarian organizations that rely on their own revenues and function according to the principles of self-management and self-sufficiency (Gonzáles, 1999). Their expansion has led to the diversification of Cuban civil society by bringing to the fore the ideas of sustainable rural development, decentralization of the economy at the local level, and promotion of the participation of producers in decision making. Beyond their role in agricultural production, they assumed a key role in community development. In 1996 alone the expansion of UBPCs contributed to 73 percent of the newly created jobs in the country (Martinez, 1999: 97). (The Alamar UBPC has created 170 jobs so far.) Similarly, some UBPCs became involved in the resolution of Cuba’s chronic housing problem by creating special funds for the improvement of communities’ housing conditions (Vilarino, 1998).

As Pierre Raymond (2002) points out, the speed and extent of the expansion of UBPCs were astounding. Between September and December 1993, 1,576 sugarcane UBPCs with a total of 146,524 members were created on 87 percent of the land previously owned by the state (Raymond, 2002: 15). By August 1994, 2,643 UBPCs, with over 257,000 members, had been established on 2,960,000 hectares (50 percent of the land under state control). In February 1995, 1,440 non-sugarcane UBPCs with 126,723 members were established. With an average size of 1,125 hectares and an average membership of 97, UBPCs assumed 80 percent of sugarcane production, 33 percent of meat production, 13 percent of vegetable production, 24 percent of coffee production, 8 percent of tobacco production, and 46 percent of milk production (Alvarez, 2004: 76; Raymond, 2002: 15).

The Alamar UBPC, established on 10 hectares of land in the west of the city of Havana, is considered an “agroecological center” that exemplifies the success of food sovereignty policies in Cuba (Koont, 2009: 60). The project’s reputation has extended beyond Cuba’s borders to become a source of inspiration in the international arena. It constantly receives visitors from over 60 countries, most of them peasants and scholars seeking to exchange ideas on agroecology and food sovereignty. It relies on broad transnational cooperation, with international partners such as German Agro-Action and the Food Security and Aid Program of the European Union. Its origins go back to 1997, when Miguel Angel López Salcine quit his position as an agricultural economist in the Ministry of Agriculture in order to “cultivate the land directly” and launched the project with four colleagues.

The La Riviera UBPC was established in the mid-1990s by Anastacio García Capote (El Capote) on 1 hectare. Retired from the army after 37 years of service, El Capote had accepted an invitation from the local secretary of the Partido Comunista de Cuba (Communist Party of Cuba—PCC) to build an organic garden in Santa Clara. At first the duration of La Riviera project was expected to be five years, but the growing success of the garden allowed it to continue. El Capote believed that “to become a good master, one should first master pedagogy,” and therefore, before building his garden, he joined the Cuban campesino-a-campesino movement and traveled around the country learning about agroecological methods. He regularly participates in the meetings of Asociación Nacional de Productores Orgánicos (National Association of Organic Producers), which take place once every two years and bring together the best producers in the country to share their experience and expertise.

The UBPCs were developed on the basis of the experience of Cooperativas de Producción Agropecuaria (Agricultural Production Cooperatives—CPAs). Established after the First Congress of the PCC in 1975, the CPAs brought together small-scale farmers and their families who wanted to gain greater access to electricity, housing, education, and medical care. The structure of the UBPCs is similar to that of the CPAs. A general assembly made up of all members is the highest organ of the cooperative, and it elects nine board members as managers for terms of five years. Normally the board consists of the general manager, the senior engineer, and the chiefs of economy, production, services, machinery and land, as well as two other members of the cooperative. Members have the right to vote on the admission of new members and the expulsion of members who are not performing their duties properly. In contrast to the CPA experience, which relied on the principle of private ownership of land, land ownership remains communal in the UBPCs, although the members may cultivate their land in perpetuity (Alvarez, 2004: 77, 80; Enríquez, 2010: 129; Royce, 2004: 23–24, 30–31).

López insisted that Alamar has an independent management that allows members to have their own bank accounts and individual contracts and includes a special mechanism for the distribution of revenues according to work experience and age. While newcomers hold a single share each, experienced members may hold up to five. However, share ownership does not provide the more experienced members with the privilege of working less than the others or imposing their ideas on others. Decisions are made at the monthly meetings of the general assembly, in which all members have equal rights to vote. Weekly meetings are held to discuss benefits, costs, and complaints. The general assembly is responsible for electing the board of directors by secret ballot and forming a general development plan and triannual plans. The board’s role is limited to the execution of development plans approved by the general assembly.

Some 50 percent of the net surplus revenue is shared among members, while the other half is mainly used for the repayment of equipment loans and other expenses related to production issues such as the purchase of inputs. Anything remaining after these expenses is devoted to the development of services such as housing, recreational facilities, health care, and technical training. In addition, the Banco Nacional de Cuba (National Bank of Cuba— NBC) provides the cooperatives with credits for basic community activities such as housing. For housing loans the NBC offers an interest rate of 2 percent in mountainous areas and 3 percent in other areas of the country (Alvarez, 2004: 80, 77–78). Alamar prioritizes the social development of the cooperative and the improvement of the living conditions of its members based on collective funds from its own net revenues. López says, “We cannot succeed if the workers are unhappy.” Meanwhile, the cooperative provides interest-free loans to members and often distributes products such as daily soap and detergent. The cooperative serves its members free morning coffee, breakfast, and lunch. The collective funds also permit the provision of free services such as hairdressing and manicures on a regular basis. López holds that membership in the cooperative therefore remains highly competitive. Newcomers undergo a trial period of 90 days during which they must prove their discipline and skills and express some degree of belonging to the community.

The La Riviera UBPC, employing 18 farmers, grows 13 types of vegetables for a large community whose members enjoy buying fresh produce every day right on their street. The cooperative sells its products at the garden gate but also participates in regional agricultural markets. However, 40 percent of total production is devoted to social consumption, which means that it is usually sold to schools, day-care centers, and hospitals at low prices. Each month, El Capote presents a report to members on monthly production and sales. Once the production goals are achieved, net revenues coming from the sale of excess production are shared. During the months of February and March of 2010, members shared a sum of more than 18,000 pesos from the sale of surplus production. Besides the income from surplus production, members receive a regular wage every two weeks. Funding for the UBPC is completely independent; the government does not contribute to the cooperative’s budget. Government enterprises provide it only with gardening tools. The cooperative also has a reserve fund that is used to repair the machinery and to pay the salaries of members during extraordinary events like hurricanes. Thus, despite two recent hurricanes that have completely destroyed the garden, the cooperative has managed to survive and renew its infrastructure and workforce by resorting to the reserve fund.

Cuba’s agroecological restructuring was not limited to the creation of UBPCs. The reform also introduced the Granjas Estatales de Nuevo Tipo (New-Type State Farms—GENTs), which have more administrative autonomy than the traditional state farms. Although the farms remain under state ownership, worker cooperatives run them, and workers themselves share 50 percent of the net revenues. One could argue that the GENTs constitute an important transitional step in the expansion of UBPCs with government support: the government actively encourages successful GENTs to become UBPCs (Alvarez et al., 2006: 235; Wright, 2009: 139–140).

Similarly, the agroecological reform also reorganized CCSs, made up of individual producers who want to acquire greater access to credit, machinery, fertilizers, and technical assistance (Forster and Handelman, 1985: 184; Valdés, 1990: 84). The main objective of CCSs is facilitating the sharing of irrigation and other installations, services, and means of production, as well as collective arrangements for credit (Royce, 2004: 23). In 1995, the ANAP decided to strengthen the CCSs by improving their management and providing better-quality services (Peter et al., 2011: 58). In parallel, the agroecological reform in Cuba encouraged the consolidation of CCSs by merging small cooperatives into larger units for greater efficiency. The new CCSs have a higher quality of professional services and have become capable of developing production plans on a collective basis with the state food collection and distribution agency (Wright, 2009: 140).

The Camilo Cienfuegos CCS is located in Jagüey Grande, an agrarian municipality of Matanzas province that specializes in the production of citrus and other fruits. The municipality has over 60,000 residents, of whom 2,100 are members of cooperatives. About 80 percent of the food consumed in the municipality comes from these cooperatives. Having recently won the Flag of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Revolution and the National Vanguard Award, the Camilo Cienfuegos CCS is one of the oldest and most successful cooperatives in the region. It has 256 members (with an average age of 54 years) of whom 138 (38 of them women) are landowners. The administrative committee of the cooperative is made up of members from a peasant family background except for one from a working-class family who became a landowner after the third land reform. Sergio Correa, the president of the cooperative, said that the third land reform had led to a dramatic increase in membership. The cooperative aimed to produce 39,000 quintals by the end of 2011. Production plans are made through close coordination between government institutions and cooperatives and take into consideration both the needs of the nation and those of the peasants. According to Correa, the success of the cooperative is mainly due to its interaction with government institutions and scientists and the development of agroecological expertise through the campesino-a-campesino movement. Eleven members are actively involved in the movement. Members agreed that the greatest obstacle to the expansion of the agroecological movement was the difficulty of persuading farmers of the benefits of agroecological practices.

Although the structure of the Camilo Cienfuegos CCS rests on the principle of private property and net revenues are considered individual, this cooperative has a collective fund dedicated to community development that amounts to 2 percent of individual net revenues. The general assembly, which is held on the second Saturday of each month, decides how the funds will be used. Members do not see the collective fund as a reduction of their individual incomes. Board members believed that the cooperative arrangement had affected their work in a positive way, allowing them to establish closer links with the government and to receive better services and better representation. Community needs are determined by interactions with other community members through channels such as the Consejos Populares (People’s Councils). Several members participate in the People’s Councils, voicing their concerns when necessary. The contribution of the cooperative to community development is also channeled through voluntary donations to day-care centers and schools and to maternity, seniors’, and veterans’ associations.

In contrast to the two UBPCs, the CCS relates to external actors through communication channels tied to the ANAP. José Morales, a peasant leader of the ANAP in Villa Clara, a key province in the development of the campesino-a-campesino movement in Cuba, asserted that the third land reform had led to the creation of over 10,000 private associations in the province. The immediate effects of the reform found expression in peasants’ increased sense of belonging to the land, the expansion of low-input agriculture, and an increase in productivity. Morales associated the success of the cooperative movement with the development of close coordination with government institutions and the presence of grassroots dynamics within the ANAP. The ANAP’s Department of Science and Technology collaborates with government scientists and coordinates relations between them and the peasant movement. When a farmer develops an agroecological technique, the department provides him with a patent while ensuring the expansion of the technique among farmers through their cooperatives. The use of new techniques is not imposed from above but subject to the decision of the general assembly of each cooperative. Relations between farmers and the state can also take a more direct form when the representative of the ANAP or the peasant himself attends the sessions of Poder Popular (Popular Power), the supreme organ of the state, to report a problem. Poder Popular is expected to provide a direct response.

Morales added that the ANAP promotes the development of various grassroots dynamics that function according to the principle of “production for the people.” In addition to such grassroots movements as the “movement for 1 million liters of milk,” the “movement for 100 tons of pork” and the “movement for 25 tons of lamb,” the ANAP has an agroecological movement that has 5,000 members in Villa Clara. Not all the farmers who practice organic methods are necessarily involved in this movement, which generally consists of farmers who are “organically conscious” and aim to achieve 100 percent organic production. There is an emerging awareness of the importance of organic consumption among consumers in places where agroecological practices are predominant, but the trend is still far from spreading to the rest of the country.

The agroecological reform appears to have been successful in terms of enhancing agricultural diversity, increasing small farmers’ contribution to agricultural production, and increasing farmers’ income and well-being. The production of sugarcane was reduced by one-third in the first half of the 2000s, and the land reserved to sugarcane production had fallen to 397,000 hectares by 2006—representing a considerable reduction in comparison with the 1.3 million hectares devoted to this purpose during the 1980s and 1990s (Wright, 2009: 232). Small-farmer productivity increased by almost 200 percent between 1988 and 2009, with small peasants contributing nearly 60 percent of vegetable production, over 75 percent of corn production, almost 95 percent of bean production, about 30 percent of rice production, over 95 percent of fruit production, over 50 percent of cows’ milk production, over 60 percent of meat production, 75 percent of pork production, and over 50 percent of cattle production (Peter et al., 2011: 93–94). Between 2001 and 2006 the income of farmers working in the nonstate sector increased significantly, by 42 percent, and the monthly average agricultural wage went up by 62 percent. Farming became one of the highest-paid professions in the country (Wright, 2009: 233).

The Socialization of Urban Agriculture with Participatory Methods

Agroecological reform also led to the socialization of urban agriculture, which emerged in 1989 as a grassroots movement in Cuba. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union the movement was considerably expanded (Cruz and Medina, 2003: 3–4; Mansata, 2008: 45). Broadly speaking, the practice of urban agriculture in Cuba was built on three basic principles: the use of environment-friendly organic methods, the rational use of resources, and the direct marketing of produce to consumers (Companioni et al., 2002: 220). López of the Alamar cooperative emphasized that while the majority of organic food production in the world is for the wealthy elite, in Cuba it is for broader consumption. He explained that the Alamar project draws its motivation not solely from the aim of increasing organic food consumption but also from other social principles such as community development, job creation, reduction of working hours, development of social services for cooperative members, and increased sustainability and agricultural diversification. In his opinion the project has had a “great social impact” on communities in the region and has influenced the mind sets of Cuban families in favor of a healthier diet and eating habits.

Drawing on these principles, the Cuban government’s Departamento de Agricultura Urbana (Department of Urban Agriculture) has organized numerous workshops and educational programs in organic gardening with the motto “Produce While Learning, Teach While Producing, and Learn While Teaching!” (Koont, 2009; Mansata, 2008: 47). Urban farmers have formed garden clubs with the aim of encouraging the sharing of experience and knowledge of urban gardening. These clubs have provided urban communities with greater access to workshops, larger farmer networks, profitable markets, and public rewards (Mansata, 2008: 47–48; Murphy, 2008: 116).

The socialization of urban agriculture has also been facilitated by extension services whereby organizers, teachers, and experts help farmers by ensuring communication among them, encouraging participation in workshops, and guaranteeing access to knowledge and other resources. By 1998 over 30,000 people had participated in training sessions and seminars organized by extension services and research institutions in the city of Havana. The socialization of urban agriculture has also been maintained through public-private “seed houses” that specialize in the sale of gardening inputs such as seeds, tools, and bio-fertilizers (Murphy, 2008: 117–120).

The expansion of urban agriculture through participatory methods has greatly contributed to the strengthening of Cuban civil society. The People’s Councils have encouraged local initiatives for urban agriculture on the basis of citizen participation with a community spirit (Cruz and Medina, 2003: 24, 26–27). The Fundación Antonio Núñez Jiménez de la Naturaleza y el Hombre (Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humanity—FANJ) offers assistance to urban farmers in developing production techniques and provides increased access to information (Premat, 2009: 34).

Cuban urban agriculture may take one of the following forms (Mansata, 2008: 48–50): huertos populares (kitchen gardens), privately cultivated small urban gardens that are mostly for self-provisioning; huertos intensivos (intensive gardens), mostly raised-bed gardens with a high ratio of compost to soil, usually private but sometimes cooperative-, state-, or collectively run; autoconsumos, owned and run by the staffs of workplaces and institutions, which may sell their surplus at market prices; campesinos particulares, mostly privately owned in the outlying greenbelt of the city; empresas estatales, semiprivate urban or suburban farms with a more or less autonomous structure compared with state enterprises; and organopónicos, employing raised-bed and organic farming techniques that are particularly suitable for infertile soils or paved surfaces (Mansata, 2008: 48–50). Although it is difficult to specify the exact number of urban gardens because of their fragmentation and decentralization, in 2007 there were 3,861 organopónicos on 1,700.53 hectares and 7,070 huertos intensivos on 9,171 hectares (Luis, 2007: 27–28).

By the first decade of the twenty-first century, then, urban agriculture in Cuba had become an extensive practice. Between 1995 and 1999 popular participation in urban agriculture increased significantly, from 3,966 to 26,604 urban farmers. In the early 2000s urban agriculture occupied 12 percent of the land of the city of Havana, involving more than 22,000 urban and periurban producers who had ceased to produce only for subsistence and shifted to commercial production. By 2003 urban agriculture had created more than 326,000 jobs. By 2006 about 90 percent of the agricultural produce consumed in Havana came from urban agriculture (Cruz and Medina, 2003: 4–5; Stricker, 2007: 42).

The Reopening of Free Agricultural Markets

The efforts to decentralize the agricultural sector and democratize decision making also led to the reopening of free agricultural markets in 1994 with the promulgation of Decree Law 191, which authorized the sale of farmers’ surplus at prices determined by supply and demand (Botella-Rodríguez, 2010: 11). Drawing on the free-market experience of 1980–1986, the reopening of free markets was intended to undermine the black market, increase peasant productivity, and reduce the high levels of monetary liquidity caused by limited supply. It also aimed to reduce the budget deficit caused by social expenditures by taxing the small farmers who participated in the markets (Alvarez, 2004: 134; Bas, 2006: 58). The free agricultural markets, jointly managed by the ministries of agriculture and internal trade, were not exempt from certain regulations. UBPCs were allowed to sell 20 percent of their production goal and 20 percent of their surplus in free markets as long as they were meeting the minimum 80 percent of their monthly production goals (Alvarez, 2004: 98, 78–79).

By December 1994 more than 200 markets had been established with broad popular support (Abbassi, 1998: 32). Within the first year, free-market sales amounted to more than 20,000 tons of agricultural produce and meat, representing 25–30 percent of the total production sold to the public and from a quarter to a third of the total calories consumed by the Cuban population. By 1999 the sales volume had tripled, and the annual fees collected by the government reached over 5 million pesos. In the long run, free markets proved to be more effective than the black market in offering lower prices and increasing access to food, although they are still subject to serious controversy related to their tendency to be focused on relatively high income-earners (Bas, 2006: 58–59).

The Campesino-a-Campesino Program and the Transnationalization of The Agroecological Movement

After the land reform, the ANAP called for the agroecological transformation of the country from the bottom up. Adopting the encouragement of agroecological methods among farmers as its primary task, it established new goals based on agroecological principles: to promote sustainable small-farming practices based on farmer-to-farmer exchanges; to support horizontal and sustainable technology transfers relying on participatory methods; and to emphasize research and development activities for successful agroecological extension, public education, and appropriate technology transfers (Funes et al., 2002: 85).

Building on its crucial role in deepening the agroecological agrarian reform, the ANAP expanded its scope through the development of the campesino-a-campesino program on a national scale. The program aims to promote and improve the production systems so as to stimulate both sustainability and peasant participation, initiative, and empowerment (Peter et al., 2011: 66). At the grassroots level the latter are ensured through the mobilization of agroecologically conscious and well-educated political cadres known as promoters, facilitators, and coordinators. Promoters, the movement’s most basic actors, are chosen among volunteer farmers with outstanding agroecological production results who are dedicated to the development of their community and the protection of the environment and nature. Facilitators are cooperative members or people working under contract for their cooperatives to facilitate the promotion and spread of agroecological methods by conducting training sessions and organizing workshops. They are selected for their vocation, communication skills, and availability, and in contrast to promoters some of them are paid by their cooperatives. Coordinators are qualified executive cadres who are directly related to the ANAP leadership and responsible for the formation of agroecological working groups. In contrast to facilitators, who work within their cooperatives, they contribute to the establishment of links among various allied agencies on a national scale (Peter et al., 2011: 85–86, 88–89).

The campesino-a-campesino program relies upon activities such as workshops, visits, and meetings and several forms of cultural communication. Most ANAP activities take place in the organization’s regional and provincial offices, and this decentralized structure has proved effective in maintaining strong relationships with members and the equitable distribution of agricultural information, thereby increasing the scope of the program (Alvarez et al., 2006: 243). Workshops are organized with the aim of socializing the agroecological experience and collectively building new knowledge. The socialization of agroecology is not confined to technical meetings but also includes the use of testimonies, demonstrations, songs, poems, socio-drama, poster art, exhibitions, and photography (Peter et al., 2011: 70–74).

The ANAP’s campesino-a-campesino program became a mass movement after the first national meeting, which took place in February 2001 with the participation of about 5,800 peasant families and 200 promoters, facilitators, and other leaders. By 2008 the program was taking place in 155 municipalities (85 percent of the country), involving 3,052 facilitators and 9,211 promoters. By 2011, while the number of facilitators had decreased slightly, to 3,031, the number of promoters had reached 11,935. Similarly, the number of coordinators had reached 170, and the participation of peasant families had climbed to 110,000 (Funes-Monzote, 2008: 31; Peter et al., 2011: 17, 75–76, 92). While the Mesoamerican campesino-a-campesino movement gained only 30,000 members in 30 years, the movement in Cuba gathered more than 100,000 members in only a decade (Peter et al., 2011: 61). The success of the movement is further apparent in its transnationalization through the regional initiatives of the ANAP and the Cuban government.

The movement’s transnationalization dates to 1993, when some member cooperatives of the ANAP established contacts and exchanges with Mexican and Nicaraguan campesino-a-campesino movements. In summer 1995 the ANAP hosted Bairon Corrales and Marcial López, leaders of the Unión Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos de Nicaragua (National Farmers’ and Ranchers’ Association of Nicaragua—UNAG), to discuss improving agroecological methods and increasing the effectiveness of sustainable agriculture. During this visit the ANAP was invited to the sixth regional meeting of the campesino-a-campesino movement, which took place in Honduras in November 1995. In November 1996 Cuba was the host country for the seventh regional meeting of the movement, with about 90 delegates from Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. At the meeting the ANAP was elected to the movement’s liaison and monitoring committee. The Cuban program was established after this meeting. After 1996 the program was supported by a long list of transnational actors, including Bread for the World, Vía Campesina, the Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First, the Consorcio Latinoamericano sobre Agroecología y Desarrollo, the Instituto Sindical de Cooperación al Desarrollo, the Centro de Estudios Rurales y de Agricultura Internacional, Oxfam, the Group of Civilian Volunteers of Italy, the Red Internacional de Agricultura y Democracia, Norsk Folkehjelp, Terre des Hommes, the Centre National de Coopération au Développement, the Centro Cooperativista Uruguayo, and the Asociación para la Cooperación con el Sur (Licea, 2001: 86–88; Peter et al., 2011: 62–63).

As a member of Vía Campesina, the ANAP occupies a key position in the transnationalization of food sovereignty policy; it coordinates the International Commission of Work on Sustainable Agriculture, a commission responsible for developing strategies of resistance and defense for peasant and family agriculture and constructing alternatives for the expansion of food sovereignty. The commission works to create a lively synergy among the members of Vía Campesina in order to establish a basic agroecological knowledge structure that recognizes the importance of traditional farmer and indigenous knowledge. To this end, it documents and systematizes agroecological experiences among Vía Campesina members as a means of socializing and facilitating the implementation of horizontal learning among different countries (Peter et al., 2011: 27). As the movement’s policy documents (International Commission for Sustainable Peasant Agriculture, 2013: 12–13) state: “The experiences of many Vía Campesina member organizations, most notably that of ANAP in Cuba, have demonstrated that the ‘Campesino a Campesino’ methodology is the best way for peasants and family farmers to develop and share their own agroecological farming technologies and systems.” In its international relations, the ANAP pays special attention to the development of peasant movements in Venezuela. Within the context of the “project of integral training for peasants and indigenous peoples with an agroecological approach,” 34 ANAP staff members are working in 22 states and 205 municipalities of Venezuela. They have opened 565 agroecological classrooms and seven regional schools of agroecology with the participation of 10,744 people. They have also educated 641 Venezuelan peasant leaders at the ANAP’s Niceto Pérez Learning Center in Cuba (Peter et al., 2011: 115).

The international aspects of food sovereignty policy in Cuba were widely expressed throughout my interviews with various peasant leaders. López said that the Alamar project had faced major technical and practical difficulties: “At the beginning, we had no idea what to do and where to start, but one thing was clear as day: either we produced biologically, or we would all die of hunger.” López said that the biggest obstacle for the development of the project was the lack of experience and technology and admitted that the contribution of international actors to technological progress had been immense. He emphasized that the initiators of the project relied on the technical know-how of countries such as the United States, Russia, Spain, and Germany. He also noted that interactions with academics from Berkeley, California, had been very useful for the development of the project despite the troubled state of relations between Cuba and the United States. The La Riveira UBPC has become an international player through its cooperation with peasants, particularly in Venezuela. El Capote reported that he had been invited to Venezuela years ago and stayed there for three years sharing his experience and know-how with other farmers. During the interviews, he never removed his hat, on which was printed the flag of Venezuela and the logo of its Special Program for Food Security. He described Venezuela as a beautiful country with a strong “spirit of struggle and change.” Regarding the international relations of the Cuban peasant movement, he argued that relations with international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are of paramount importance in developing the technological structure of the country. He noted that Cuban peasants often hosted farmers from different countries in their homes to share their expertise and that four members of the Villa Clara section of the ANAP were in Venezuela at the time to promote the “Cuban model of agriculture” among peasants there.

The transnationalization of Cuban food sovereignty policy is not confined to the activities of the ANAP. The close collaboration between Cuba and Venezuela in the field of agroecology has been a determining factor in the increased role of the Cuban agroecological movement in the context of the ALBA, one of the most powerful tools for the transnationalization of food sovereignty in Latin America. Not surprisingly, as De La Barra and Dello Bruno (2009: 255) note, the ALBA’s fundamental goals include land distribution and food security. After the global food crisis of the mid-2008, food sovereignty became a ruling norm for the ALBA nations. In 2008 the ALBA announced the construction of a regional alliance to tackle the food crisis through a food security fund of US$100 million, and ALBA members signed an agreement for cooperation in the area of food security and food sovereignty. In addition, the ALBA’s food program has initiated an agricultural project of US$9 million in Haiti and developed 10 projects amounting to about US$13 million in various Caribbean countries (ALBA-TCP, 2008; Marquez, 2009; SELA, 2008). In February 2009 ALBA members signed an agreement for food security and sovereignty and decided to create a supranational food company, ALBA Alimentos, aiming to ensure food sovereignty in Latin America, with an initial investment of US$49 million. In 2010 ALBA invested more than US$831,000 in Cuba for the realization of Project Endógeno, aiming to install an irrigation system and pig-raising units, construct repair shops, and distribute tools and parts for trucks and tractors (ALBA-TCP, 2009; Radio Rebelde, 2010; Suggett, 2009).

Conclusion: Learning from the Cuban Experience

The establishment of a close relationship with the Soviet Union helped Cuba to experience the highest growth rates in Latin America and to acquire a high degree of social equity and welfare but at the cost of becoming a mono-exporter and multi-importer extremely dependent on the commercial privileges provided by the international socialist system (Benjamin and Rosset, 1994: 3; Forster and Handelman, 1985; Rosset, 2000). When the collapse of the Soviet Union revealed the vulnerability of Cuba’s agrarian structure, Cuba undertook a radical agroecological agrarian reform in 1993 and went on to experience the largest transition from conventional and industrial farming to organic and semiorganic farming in the history of humankind. Indeed, as Koont (2004) would argue, the Cuban experience of revolutionary agroecology can show the way for other developing countries that are striving to establish food sovereignty on the basis of their own resources.

Thanks to the successful implementation of food sovereignty policy, the contribution of the Cuban peasantry to domestic food production has rapidly increased, and farming has become one of the highest-paid occupations in the country. The collectivization of land led to the establishment of workers’ control and cooperative democracy by diversifying and consolidating Cuba’s social structure. In parallel with the rise of the cooperative movement, participatory urban agriculture became a popular agroecological practice based on the principles of organic production, rational use of local resources, and direct marketing. The growth of this grassroots movement was ensured through the establishment of garden clubs, extension services, seed houses, and People’s Councils seeking long-term solutions to community problems. The reopening of free agricultural markets helped decentralize agriculture and democratize decision making in the context of agroecological reform. Finally, the reform led to the development and transnationalization of the Cuban food sovereignty movement through the initiative of the ANAP and the experience of the ALBA.

Cuba has thus emerged as a leading actor in the transnationalization of food sovereignty and agroecology in the developing world, occupying key positions in major transnational peasant organizations such as Vía Campesina and the international campesino-a-campesino movement. Because of its support for the development of agroecology in Venezuela, it has established food sovereignty as a ruling norm in that country and in the ALBA, which has set up a food security fund, a food bank, a food multinational, and numerous food programs. Having experienced the highest dietary energy supply level by 2007 and the best food production performance in the region between 1996 and 2005, alongside an annual growth rate of 4.2 percent in per capita food production as opposed to the 0 percent rate of the regional average (Altieri and Funes-Monzote, 2012), Cuba provides a shining example for other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean of what can be achieved with a knowledge-intensive model (Rosset, 1994) of agrarian development prioritizing small-scale agriculture and agroecological techniques. Furthermore, Cuba’s food sovereignty policy has contributed to the diversification of its international relations through the ALBA and its cooperation with Venezuela, reversing its isolation from the rest of the continent.

The agricultural transformation in Cuba roughly conforms to the start of a “democratic socialist transition,” as suggested by Otero and O’Bryan (2002). Despite their pessimistic view of the future of Cuba’s current transition, which they believe is hampered by the state’s containment of the civil sphere, they argue that the economic and political crisis of the Special Period paved the way for the emergence of a civil sphere and that this process should be combined with a market-based democratic and socialist transformation that preserves the human development component of the Cuban Revolution (30–31, 53): “If Cuba could move toward both political democratization and efficient economic decentralization while maintaining its egalitarian thrust, it could then become a truly desirable model for many countries in Latin America.” Although one could say that the jury is still out as to whether Cuba will succeed in implementing a truly socialist-democratic transition under Raúl Castro, its agroecological restructuring is an important prelude to such a transition.

The theory and practice of the Cuban agroecological movement indicate that food sovereignty is not solely a local issue, nor is it limited to the sphere of civil society. Rather, the genuinely emancipatory potential of food sovereignty policy emerges only if local struggles can be tied to both nationwide and transnational solutions that rely upon a progressive alliance between social movements and left-leaning governments. This requires decentralized decision-making processes that balance individual initiatives and institutional control and a social structure that ensures the development of a diversifying civil society and of consensual policy networks based on an agroecological political culture. Moreover, food sovereignty requires, in the first place, a national and regional rather than a transnational approach.