Alimentary security rests on the cooperatives
A
conversation with Cuban sociologist Juan Valdés Paz
By
Manuel Alberto Ramy
Mid-morning.
An inviting, cool terrace and an intelligent talker whose every word
must be heard and every gesture watched, gestures that sometimes
precede the words, other times underline them, hands beating the air.
To put on paper this conversation with academician Juan Valdés
Paz, a sociologist by profession, is an Olympic challenge. We can
only reduce it to its basic elements. (*)
We
begin by recalling that Cuba has a population of 11.2 million people
and 6,629,600 hectares of arable land, only 50 percent of which is
cultivated. However, last year Cuba spent $1.7 billion in food, a
figure that — if the proper measures are not taken — would rise
scandalously, given the high prices on the international market. It
is an unsustainable situation; that’s why the agro-food sector was
defined by President Raúl Castro as one affecting "national
security."
In
recent weeks, the Cuban media have thrown some light on the subject,
but we are not sure about the mid-term impact of the creation of
municipal delegations of agriculture…
From
Havana Read Spanish Version
Alimentary
security rests on the cooperatives
A
conversation with Cuban sociologist Juan Valdés Paz
By
Manuel Alberto Ramy
Mid-morning.
An inviting, cool terrace and an intelligent talker whose every word
must be heard and every gesture watched, gestures that sometimes
precede the words, other times underline them, hands beating the air.
To put on paper this conversation with academician Juan Valdés
Paz, a sociologist by profession, is an Olympic challenge. We can
only reduce it to its basic elements. (*)
We
begin by recalling that Cuba has a population of 11.2 million people
and 6,629,600 hectares of arable land, only 50 percent of which is
cultivated. However, last year Cuba spent $1.7 billion in food, a
figure that — if the proper measures are not taken — would rise
scandalously, given the high prices on the international market. It
is an unsustainable situation; that’s why the agro-food sector was
defined by President Raúl Castro as one affecting "national
security."
In
recent weeks, the Cuban media have thrown some light on the subject,
but we are not sure about the mid-term impact of the creation of
municipal delegations of agriculture in all 169 municipalities and
the creation of a working commission in Parliament devoted to the
agro-food sector.
What
is happening?
"The
recent measures indicate that we’re going toward a decentralization
of the farm sector," opines Valdés Paz, to whom
municipalization is the answer to a practically universal rule:
"Agriculture is the most decentralized activity. It uses local
land, uses local labor force, consumes local water and has an
immediate demand from local people."
This
measure has a precedent. In 1993, when Cuba’s great economic crisis
was touching bottom, the Basic Units of Cooperative Production
(UBPCs) were created on state-owned land.
Agriculture
was "strongly decentralized," Valdés Paz points out.
But it was "a gradual and unfinished process of
decentralization," because the ministries of Agriculture
(MINAGRI) and Sugar (MINAZ) created centralized enterprises and
mechanisms that hampered autonomy. As a friend of mine says,
bureaucracy everywhere (and in Cuba, too) is infinitely tricky. When
I say that, Valdés says that "verticalizing and
centralizing decisions and instruments" reduces the positive
impact on municipalities and takes away their power "because the
activities are not wholly subordinated" to the municipalities.
However,
Valdés Paz estimates that today all the forms of agro
production — cooperatives in their various forms, individual
producers, and state farms — "are under the roof of the
municipality," which will play a leading role — including the
distribution of land in usufruct — which "the Party fully
supports." I comment that, according to reliable sources, if any
municipality lacks a suitable person to direct the sector, the Party
will find him wherever it can.
According
to Valdés Paz, qualified human resources can be found in the
enterprises attached to the ministries, which, logically, should be
municipalized. This brilliant specialist refers to the need to
"reconsider a territorial decentralization of the services and
supplies," bringing supply stores, and technical and sanitary
services to a local level. Such arrangements already exist in various
localities. As I listen to him, I ponder that that measure, in
addition to being indispensable, is a way to hinder the
"verticalizing" effect of bureaucracy.
Acopio
The
Acopio Enterprise is the central organization for the purchase and
commercialization of farm products. In its early days "it (also)
supplied the state with an estimate of the production actually on the
field." It was a function that contrasted with the calculations
of the producers, who "always saw more plantains or potatoes
than would later be harvested," Valdés says, adding that
it was more prudent to make the plans for consumption and national
distribution on the basis of Acopio’s figures. That ability was lost,
however.
I
point out that many people blame Acopio for a high percentage of
losses in the harvest of farm products. Valdés answers that,
for various reasons, Acopio "does not have enough
transportation, containers or autonomy" and therefore lost its
efficacy. However, he insists that Acopio must be rescued and
fortified. I raise doubts: Does this exclude other forms of
commercialization? Can’t the cooperatives assume those functions?
What role will the market play?
The
role of the market — "which has played a very limited role in
this story" — is an unfinished discussion, but Valdés
acknowledges that it has to be attributed "a certain regulating
role." "You cannot say that the producers are self-starting
and autonomous if they don’t have a market in front of them, where
they can measure their performance," he argues. Therefore, you’d
have "to conciliate Acopio with the market activities,"
bearing in mind that Acopio "must guarantee distribution through
the [ration] book, the consumption of social institutions, and the
production assigned to the canning industry."
Valdés
Paz favors a redefinition of Acopio in the light of "the new
concept of a decentralized agriculture and the collateral role of the
free market." He says that producers know that "only an
institution like Acopio can guarantee them the fate of their crops,"
which does not exclude the participation of other traders, whether
they are members of cooperatives or other forms of production.
Land
ownership
At
present, lands are being granted in usufruct both to
Credit-and-Service Cooperatives (CCS) and individual producers. To
Prof. Armando Nova — whom I interviewed some weeks ago — what’s
important is not the property deed but the use of it. Some farmers,
cheered by the possibility of augmenting their production with new
land, express their concern that the lands cannot be bequeathed as
inheritance.
"Currently
under consideration is the turnover to other members of the family"
of any land received through a contract of usufruct, "so there
would virtually be no major difference" between one form of
ownership and another, Valdés Paz says.
Individual
producers and CCS together hold between 10 percent and 11 percent of
the land being exploited. Cooperatives of Agro Production (CPA) have
8-10 percent, and UBPCs hold 35-40 percent. The rest is in the hands
of state-run farms. "The CPAs and the UBPCs have 60 percent of
the land, [so] when you talk about alimentary security you must
basically count on the recovery of the cooperative sector."
My
interlocutor estimates that the cooperative sector should have first
dibs on the delivery of "the huge fund of idle land,"
especially the UBPCs, because of their potential.
While
I listened to Valdés, ideas came to my mind. I remembered news
filed in my memory that deal with the topic at hand. One of them is
that the agro-food sector is a priority objective of Cuba’s political
leadership. During the Sixth Plenary Meeting of the Central
Committee, Raúl Castro defined it as the Party’s principal
task.
If
we look at the press, we see that practically every week some
high-ranking Party and/or state leader tours centers of production,
among them agro-food centers, to give impetus to their activities.
Unfortunately, the media do not emphasize the depth and reach of the
measures that are being implemented, although occasionally they
highlight their importance. For example, they recently reported that
in 2006 the canning industry imported 300 tons of tomatoes from
China, 395 tons of guava from Brazil, and 50 tons of coconut from Sri
Lanka. (Granma, Friday 9 May.)
From
the point of view of the government, with the decentralization of the
sector, the municipal assemblies of the People’s Power assume real
control of the sector. That’s one reason why a Parliamentary
commission was created to supervise it.
Without
any brouhaha, the agro-food sector is undergoing structural changes
that will have an immediate effect on the structure of the central
administration of the state, with the fusion of some ministries. I
have mentioned this in previous reports. Mid-range, these experiences
could have repercussions in the city environments.
Manuel
Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and
editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso
Weekly.
(*)
To listen to the full interview (only in Spanish) on Friday, May 16,
tune to Francisco Aruca’s program "Ayer en Miami," on Union
Radio in Miami, 1450 AM, from 2 to 3 p.m. Or you can hear it via the
Progreso
Semanal Audio
page.
