The "Greening of Cuba" continued

Bob Sheak, January 29, 2002

Page 2

A period of crisis: The Special Period

Economic growth declined from 1.6 percent in 1985 to 0.7 percent in 1994 (Schwab 1999, 84). "In 1991," Rosset (2000) writes, "the government declared the ‘Special Period in Peacetime,’ which basically put the country on a wartime economy style austerity program." Trade shrunk, including imports in commodities vital to the agricultural sector. There was an "immediate 53 percent reduction in oil imports…. Imports of wheat and other grains for human consumption dropped by more than 50 percent, while other foodstuffs declined even more. Cuban agriculture was faced with a drop of more than 80 percent in the availability of fertilizers and pesticides, and more than 50 percent in fuel and other energy sources produced by petroleum." As one consequence, the "average daily caloric and protein intake by the Cuban population" dropped 30 percent below the levels in the 1980s.

According to Global Citizen, "The situation was desperate, but food distribution was kept fairly equal through rationing. There were almost no eggs, cooking oil, bread, meat, or milk, but people could live on rice, beans, fish, plantains, taro, potatoes and cassava. Everyone felt deprived, but there were few signs of malnutrition." Other sources, however, do report evidence of malnutrition during the first half of the 1990s. On the basis of his visits to Cuba during these years, Schwab (1999) observed: "Many children and adults appeared malnourished, and mothers with their children prowled the avenues of Havana desperately begging for money to buy rice, bread, and potatoes." Schwab continues: "Only children under seven could acquire milk through a ration card. There were rumors of famine in the east" (39). There was evidence of shortages in essential food items. Citing an American Association of World Health study, Schwab (1999) reports:

"’Food shortages emerged…all basic products were returned to the ration system, and supplies of many became highly unstable.’ Bread faded from the diet as fuel shortages intermittently halted production, while imports of wheat were sharply curtailed as exporters encountered roadblocks in transportation because of the embargo. When bread was available, Cubans were rationed one roll per day. Caloric intake dropped from 2,800 a day per person in 1989 to 1.863 in 1993, a reduction of some 33 percent, and government-provided lunches at workplaces and schools furnished 300 of these calories. Protein intake plummeted 40 percent. In the ten-year span from 1985 to 1995, the food production index sank 34 percent…. Anemia made its appearance as iron deficiencies in diet occurred. Nutritional deficiencies increased notably among pregnant women, while low birth weights among newborn children registered a remarkable rise" (85).

The crisis of the early 1990s was not limited to food shortages. The U.S. embargo, for example, contributed to shortages in health care sectors. Physicians had fewer types of medications, only 890 of 1,300 available in 1991. The Cuban water supply deteriorated, with rising incidence of water borne diseases such as typhoid fever, dysentery, and viral hepatitis (Global Exchange).

Dealing with the crisis in the agricultural sector

As the video "Greening of Cuba" states: "Driven by necessity, Cubans began the longest conversion to organic agriculture ever attempted. In the video, Jaun Jose Leon, a government official in the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture," says that before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba was highly dependent on that nation and East European nations as well. Cuba bought 1.5 million tons of fertilizer from these trading partners, along with farm implements (e.g., 75,000 tractors), gasoline, and great quantities of insecticides and pesticides. All of that disappeared in about a year. Rosset (2000) puts it as follows: "…the Cuban government launched a national effort to convert the nation’s agricultural sector from high input agriculture to low input, self-reliant farming practices on an unprecedented scale." The Cuban state rushed to replace chemical inputs with biological substitutes. Rosset continues:

"This has meant biopesticides (microbial products) and natural enemies to combat insect pests, resistant plant varieties, crop rotations, and microbial antagonists to combat plant pathogens, and better rotations, and cover cropping to suppress weeds. Synthetic fertilizers have been replaced by biofertilizers, earthworms, compost, other organic fertilizers, natural rock phosphate, animal and green manures, and the integration of grazing animals. In place of tractors, for which fuel, tires, and spare parts were largely unavailable, there has been a sweeping return to animal traction" (207).

On the one hand, fortunately, Cuba was not totally unprepared to face the critical situation that arose after 1989. It had, over the years, emphasized the development of human resources, and therefore had a cadre of scientists and researchers who could come forward with innovative ideas to help create an agricultural system capable of overcoming the enormous food shortages besetting the country. The country also still had small private farmers, representing about 20 percent of the agricultural sector. These were farmers who had continued to farm in traditional ways and to preserve some of the skills associated with non-industrial farming. They also could contribute to the changes from industrial to organic farming. On the other hand, the agricultural system was dominated by the large, inefficient state farms through the early 1990s. Some of the most significant initial innovations that were designed to create an organic farm sector were aimed at finding ways, first, to increase the efficiency and productivity of the state farms, and then to create alternatives to most state farms.

The state farms were not very productive or responsive to new demands

Rosset (2000) notes that "The problems of the state sector… were a combination of low worker-productivity, a problem predating the Special Period, and the complete inability of these immense and technified management units to adapt to low-input technology" (208). There were two phases of innovations to deal with the problems of the state farms.

First phase - Setting aside land on state farms for farm workers and non-workers to grow food for themselves, that is, self-provisioning

The first phase involved introduction and spread of the "autoconsumo" system, or the setting aside of land on all farms for subsistence production, enabling employee/farmers to grow food on their own time for themselves and their families. In addition, in October of 1993, the Cuban government made small parcels of land - land that was not otherwise being used - available to non-workers (e.g., retired people), for the cultivation of gardens. In both of these cases, the justification was that such "self-provisioning" would increase the overall food supply and help reduce the food shortages. Enriquez (2000) offers some details from an authoritative source.

"According to Deere et al. (1994), the loaning of parcels to workers and non-workers had been taking place since at least early 1992. Moreover, she and her co-authors speak of land takeovers occurring to establish these parcels, as well as their more orderly distribution by state farm managers. The takeovers indicated a strong demand for land for self-provisioning, a phenomenon corroborated by a MINAGRI official who estimated that around 5,000 applications for usufruct rights to a small parcel [the right to use the land for a specific purpose without owning it] had been submitted to the ministry in the first few months after this legislation was enacted. By April 1998, usufruct rights for 10,943 hectares had been given to 45,804 people-known as parceleros-so that they could engage in self-provisioning. The objective of this policy has been to ease the pressure on official channels of food distribution, as well as to reduce potential discontent about food shortages, by permitting people to grow their own food."

 

Second phase - Opening up the opportunity for turning state farms into cooperatives — partly a response to low labor productivity

In 1993, "the Cuban government issued a decree terminating the existence of [most] state farms, turning them into Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPCs), a form of worker-owned enterprise or cooperatives. The 80 percent of all farmland that was once held by the state, including sugarcane plantations, has now essentially been turned over to the workers" (Rosset 2000, 209). The Basic Units of Cooperative Production on state land were based on the following principles:

"1. UBPCs would have the usufruct of the land for an indefinite period of time. They would not own the land but could share the profits.

"2. The cooperative would own what is produced.

"3. Salaries would be directly related to productivity.

"4. The UBPCs would have managerial autonomy.

"5. The cooperatives could manage bank accounts.

"6. The UBPCs could collectively elect their leadership who would periodically report to its members." (Enriquez 2000, 72-73).

Rosset (2000) points out, additionally, that the collectives of workers paid no rent for this land. The members of the cooperative elected the management teams, and they in turn determined "the division of jobs, what crops will be planted on which parcels, and how much credit will be taken out to pay for the purchase of inputs." The UBPCs are still required to meet production quotas set by the state for their key crops, but the collectives are owners of what they produce. "Initially," Enriquez writes, "the UBPCs had to sell all production to the government at a set price (73). She continues: "They were supposed to sell their quota volumes to the state at fixed official prices, and receive a premium for excess production. The state was the only market until farmers’ markets were legalized in opened in September 1994. Now the excess production, beyond the quotas, can be sold to farmers’ markets. State farms are also authorized to sell to farmers’ markets. Cooperatives and private farmers are expected to pay taxes on the profits they earn from their non-state sales (74).

The transformation from the state farms to the UBPCs was comprehensive. According to Enriquez (2000):

"By late spring of 1994, just seven months after the legislation that created the UBPCs was enacted, 100 percent of the state-owned sugar farms had been transformed into UBPCs. In the non-sugar sector significant advances had also been made: by May 10, 1995, 971 UBPC had been formed of the 2,656 that were projected; and by the end of 1997, the non-sugar UBPCs had reached 1,576 in number. At least initially, more of these were in the livestock sector, but UBPCs had also been established on mixed cropping farms (which grow root crops, vegetables, and plantain/bananas), and other food crop farms. Clearly, the strategy of moving to smaller-sized farms and shifting from state-owned to cooperative production was proceeding apace."

Private farms

Small private farms have existed in Cuba all along. In 2000, they represented about 20% of Cuba’s cultivable land. The Cuban government has encouraged the expansion of small farms.

"In 1994, 12,000 hectares of tobacco land were turned over to 5,835 families. Families have been granted land in mountainous areas" (Enriquez 2000, 82).

How big is the organic farm sector?

The director of external relations for the Agriculture Ministry, Juan Jose Leon Vega, is quoted by Sullivan: "’I don't believe many people know how big organic farming in Cuba really is,’ he said in his large office atop a six story ministry building. How big? ‘About 1,500,000 hectares (3.7 million acres) totally biological, he said, of a total of about 2,500,000 (6.2 million) non-sugar hectares of farmland.’"

The elements of the organic-farm sector

Skilled and dedicated people

The video "Greening of Cuba" identifies many of the elements that have gone into the making of the organic-farm sector of Cuban agriculture. Most importantly, Cuba has people with agriculturally-related or farming skills that have fostered organic farming.

There are a host of agricultural professionals who are helping to develop and support organic farming. In the video, we are introduced to several agronomists who have doctorates in agronomy, an agricultural engineer, research biologists specializing in soil enrichment and the production of organic compost, a plant nutrition scientist, a hortoculturalist, a bio-pesticide technician, and a "green medicine" researcher.

There are skilled farmers with an abundance of experience. In some cases, their families have been engaged in farming for generations. These are farmers who know how to be inventive, fabricating their own spare parts, learning how to reduce waste. Small farmers are being encouraged to plant vegetable gardens to save money and market surpluses to farmers’ markets.

There are ox-drivers. We learn from Anastasio Martinez Fuentes, a 77 year old ox driver, that taking care of oxen is a lot of work and you can’t learn it when you are old. He also says that private farmers have always worked with oxen. Oxen, which can do the work of 50 people, have some advantages over tractors, in that oxen are in some ways more versatile than tractors; for example, unlike tractors, oxen can plow right after a rain and not damage the soil. Oxen also drop manure, which is good for the soil. Juan Jose Leon, Director of Foreign Relations at the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture, cautions, "We can’t do everything with oxen either." He continues: "In Cuba, it’s impossible to grow rice organically. In our big rice plantations, we have to keep using mechanization and chemicals. We can’t do it any other way." He adds that "growing potatoes is practically impossible if we can’t do it with mechanization. With some crops we have no choice but to combine the two systems."

There are coop farm managers like Pedro Luis Quintero. He rides a bicycle around the coop. He is working with researchers to develop biofertilizers and maintains that "organic agriculture and scientific research to together." He and his coop engage in sustainable farming practices based on rotation of crops and intercropping. Pedro is an enthusiastic exponent of organic farming. It protects the environment and is safe for farmers and consumers, which is not true of chemical insecticides and pesticides. He says that organic agriculture "puts the natural enemies of the pest on your side." Farmers and coops are also selling vegetables near their fields.

There are retired people who engage in gardening. A retired administrative director, Jose Ucha Santana, tends a huge organic community garden, producing cassave, sweet potatoes, taro, various green vegetables. This garden produces enough to feed the neighbors, for donations of food to child care centers, and a surplus to be sold through farmer’s markets.

There is pride in their achievements

Here are some examples of such pride from the video.

The growing importance of oxen

The growth in the use of oxen was first stimulated by the collapse of trade and support from the Soviet Union. Then it was further encouraged by the reorganization of agriculture, with the breakup of the state farms into smaller cooperatives, cooperatives which often revolved around relatively autonomous farm production units, and, in some cases, into small independent farms. Animal traction is more efficient on small farm parcels than on big state farms. According to Leon-Vega (as quoted by Sullivan): "The result is now some 74 per cent of the non-sugar farmland is in private hands either in the form of cooperatives, or in small farms. "In times of difficulty we cannot efficiently run big estates," he said. "Individual farmers can use smaller scale of production. "To that end, we - our ministry - trained 200,000 oxen to plow," he said. "You should have seen that." In addition, the government has transformed its Mechanization Institute from a focus on tractor-drawn plows to "innovative implements pulled by oxen" (Baker 2000, 82).

The expansion of biological pest control

According to Global Citizen: "Cuba has only two percent of Latin America's population but eleven percent of its scientists. Already before the crisis, some scientists had been working on natural ways to control pests and build soil nutrients. Their methods were not in wide use in Cuban fields, but they had been tested in Cuban research centers." There was also a pest monitoring system in place prior to the crisis. "All over Cuba," according to Global Citizen, "local research stations planted test crops and checked them for pests, diseases, and resistance to pesticides. Weather measurements were taken to predict pest outbreaks. At any sign of trouble, farmers were warned."

Cuba now has an institute, the Crop Protection Institute, whose principal aim is to support and encourage the development of centers that produce natural biological controls for insects and pests. There are some 222 local Centers for the Reproduction of Entomophages and Entomopathegens (CREES) across the island. They "produce extremely inexpensive biological agents made up of bugs who eat pesky bugs, virus that combat bad viruses, larvae that kill other pests, and all manner of natural weapons to combat what campesinos universally call "the plague," be it animal, virus or fungus" (Sullivan 2000). Expanding on his description, Sullivan writes:

"In some cases the sprays are made up of sliced up bodies of the pest themselves, mixed with water sprayed in the often successful theory that no species wants to hang around with the smell of its own dead. In all cases the stuff is made down the road - and, if all goes well, at a time when it is needed locally, production, distribution and market timing not being things for which socialist countries are usually most famous. Socialist countries, are, however, noted for committees. The Republic of Chile Credit Services in Vinales, Pinar del Rio Province, is no exception. Seven technically trained experts serve a credit service group of only 33 owners, each of which has about 7.5 hectares (18 acres), of mixed farms. When farmer Cirrillo Rodrequez, 65, has a problem seven technically trained members of the local government committee are available to talk to him. Even if he doesn't have a problem, the agronomic engineers show up anyway, saying something akin to we're from the government, we're here to help you. And help they do. They know the signs indicating which "plague" is hitting his rice, corn, root crops, pigs, chickens and vegetables, and what biological products can be applied to help. He gets the sprays from the local CREE."

The biocontrol scientists in Cuba are extending knowledge in such research and discovering new biocontrols. According to Global Citizen, "They are isolating nematodes that kill harmful bugs and soil microbes that counteract plant diseases. They learned from farmers how to use a predatory ant to control sweet potato weevil. They are multiplying virus-free seedlings through tissue culture and testing crop rotations to control weeds. Local farmers told them that when weeds get out of hand, plant sweet potato, which grows so densely it shades out everything else." Baker gives these examples of bio-pesticides: "A small worm-eating fly now guards the yucca crop; zillions of wasps are being bred to attack the sugarcane borer; and ants have been unleashed in the banana and sweet potato crops" (82).

The Production and use of natural fertilizers

In the video "Greening of Cuba," two research biologists appear who are involved in doing research on natural fertilizers and spreading the word on what is being discovered. They refer to "organic fertilizers," letting cows craze in fields where crops will be cultivated, and rotating crops, and regularly letting the "soil rest" so that it can replenish its organic matter. Global Citizen reports on how "oxen provide manure for the soil. Plowed-under legumes are also used to build up soil nutrients, along with composted municipal garbage and humus from industrial-scale earthworm farms. In "The Greening of Cuba," Robert Garcia Trujillo, a research biologist, refers to how table scraps, forage, manure, and soil can be variously layered and watered so that microorganisms can grow in this compost. The outcome is "high quality organic matter." In another scene from the video, Jose Luis Gonzalez Pais, a composting foreman on a cooperative farm, describes how organic fertilizer, or humus, is made, with a mound of dirt and/or manure, watering, worms, another layer of manure, and burlap, paper, cardboard, or gunny sack as food for the worms. Cuban scientists have discovered free-living bacteria that fix nitrogen or release phosphorus into the soil -- living fertilizer factories." There are now 173 "vermicompost" centers across Cuba, which together produce 93,000 tons of natural compost a year (Food First — leader in organic farming). In short, Cuba is integrating traditional methods of fertilizing the soil, with scientific innovations, to help create a solid foundation for the extension of organic farming free of chemicals. As a result, Cuba was moving towards a chemically-free food production system by the mid-1990s.

Medicinal plants

Medicinal plants are also grown in Cuba’s burgeoning organic farm sector. In "The Greening of Cuba," Mercedes Carcia Negren, a Ph.D. and green medicine researcher, refers to how plants with medicinal attributes are being grown in "bromatology" labs. She is filmed in a garden in which herbs, some of which have multiple purposes, are being grown and identifies just those around her as rue, basil, yellow-alder, sweet marjoram, wild ginger, cordovan, linden, oregano, and aloe. Negren refers to the medicinal benefits of aloe, as an herb that can help treat skin problems, blisters, injuries, and burns. It also has cosmetic value in the form of crèmes and shampoo.

 

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