Armando Nova “Cooperatives: A Key Line of Agrarian Development in Cuba” September 27 , 2005

Armando Nova is a professor and researcher at the Centro de Estudios de la Economía Cubana, Universidad de La Habana.

Agricultural Reform in Cuba Since 1959
By Maki Tanaka

Agriculture in Cuba has turned away from Soviet-style state enterprise, and is now favoring autonomous cooperatives and market-style accounting with an emphasis on profitability. This marks a new — and to-date successful — phase in Cuba ’s socialist economy.

In his revealing talk on the history of agricultural cooperatives in Cuba , Professor Armando Nova, an internationally renowned economist at the University of Havana , described a series of agricultural changes that have taken place since the 1959 Revolution, a unique trajectory that reflects the wider political economy of each period.

The first agrarian reform came shortly after the 1959 triumph of the Revolution. According to Nova’s research, under Batista’s regime, 73.3 percent of the land was owned by 9.4 percent of landowners. The revolutionary government nationalized over 5 million hectares (ha) and redistributed 1 million ha of cultivable land to more than 100,000 peasants, thus quickly initiating the state agricultural sector. Furthermore, the Revolution sought to rectify U.S.-dominated sugarcane monoculture, maintained by historically preferential import quotas for Cuban sugar in the U.S. When the quotas were cancelled, another trade scheme under the auspices of the Soviet Union took their place, resulting in the maintenance of the monoculture structure and the long-term vulnerability of Cuban agriculture to the vagaries of the sugar market. At this time, no notable cooperative movement was observed, apart from the creation of Credit and Service Cooperatives (CCSs) in the tobacco sector and the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), which were the “least socialist in character,” as they retained individual land ownership.

In the mid-1970s, the second wave of agricultural reform took shape against the backdrop of economic turmoil and the failure of the 10-million-ton harvest plan in 1970. Groups of s mall farmers formed Agricultural Production Cooperatives (CPAs), giving up their land and other means of production and receiving individual compensation from the state in return. However, the short but intensive CPA formation period was followed by the far-reaching nationalization of farms, bolstering the state sector, which, by 1989, owned 82 percent of total land. The large-scale, planned agricultural production set in motion by this reform was based on an economy of scale, “not,” said Nova, “on efficiency as an economic model.” Thanks to the assistance of the Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation (COMECON), a trade arrangement among the nations of the former Communist bloc, Cuba joined the world-wide trend toward agro-industrialization based on state supported mechanization, technological innovation and the use of agrochemical inputs, which later turned out to be environmentally unsustainable. During this period, Cuban agricultural production grew in absolute terms, but was simultaneously offset by uncalculated costs.

Professor Laura Enríquez moderated the event, which dealt with the role of cooperatives in Cuban agriculture.

The end of the Soviet bloc (1990–91) called into question the viability of the state farm model and impelled what Nova called the “third agrarian reform” in the 1990s. In 1993 state farms — starting with the sugarcane sector — began to be subdivided into Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPCs). The UBPC farmers owned all means of production except the land, which they used in usufruct. By 1999, only 24 percent of cultivable land remained in the hands of the state. Five hundred thousand farmers were cooperative members in 2004, comprising 60 percent of those engaged in agriculture. The extent of this transformation is most apparent in the sugar sector, whose cooperative cultivation increased from 16 percent of the land prior to 1993, to 91 percent by 2004.

Along with the creation of UBPCs, the reforms of 1990s generated a substantial private sector as well. More than 300,000 ha were turned over to over 200,000 campesinos [small farmers], who Nova expects will form CCS-like cooperatives as the need for production technology rises.

The third agrarian reform also involved the substitution of animal traction for machines, the replacement of agrochemicals by organic inputs, the expansion of home gardens and the legalization of farmers’ markets. Such changes were more suitable for small-scale cultivation. The success stories of this transformation which saved Cubans from food crisis are widely reported and have been acclaimed as the “greening of Cuba .”

Professor Nova highlighted this achievement by illustrating growth in the number of profitable CPAs, from 65 percent in 1987 to 85 percent in 1992. In roughly the same period, the profitability of state farms only grew from 61 percent (1986) to 70 percent (1990). The long-established CPAs, as mature organizations, have maintained profitability throughout the 1990s except for the drought year of 2004. UBPCs, the latecomer to the cooperative movement, are expected to follow the example of the CPAs. Nova concluded that the decision to reinforce the cooperative sector in the 1990s was the right move. However, it remains to be seen whether the cooperatives can negotiate more autonomy in the near future, which would provide a more propitious environment.

If profitability has become the critical yardstick in future agricultural development in Cuba , Professor Nova was referring to a very decisive turning point indeed in the Cuban economy. According to the statistics presented in the talk, the most prominent sectors in terms of production and profitability were the private sector and the CCSs. In other words, those with titles to land — the “least socialist” sectors — were the most successful. It is worth noting that not only the structure of production, but that of demand, too, has undergone significant transformations. The withdrawal of COMECON assistance meant Cuba finally had the chance to steer away from sugar monoculture — to tourism. Though not mentioned in Professor Nova’s talk, tourism has replaced sugar as the largest industry in Cuba and has reshaped agricultural production extensively. In light of this new emphasis on profit-orientation and export drive, the direction of Cuban socialism may well be charted in the outlook of its agricultural cooperatives.

Armando Nova is a professor and researcher the Centro de Estudios de la Economía Cubana at the Universidad de La Habana. He gave a talk titled “Cooperatives: A Key Line of Agrarian Development in Cuba ” on September 27, 2005 at CLAS.

Maki Tanaka is a graduate student in the Anthropology department.

Professor Nova's talk packed the CLAS Conference Room on September 27.