This article was downloaded by: [University of Saskatchewan Library]

On: 23 November 2012, At: 13:44

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,
UK

Socialism and Democracy

Publication details, including instructions for authors
and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csad20

Food Sovereignty and

Cooperatives in Cuba's Socialism
Rainer Schultz
Version of record first published: 22 Nov 2012.

To cite this article: Rainer Schultz (2012): Food Sovereignty and Cooperatives in Cuba's
Socialism, Socialism and Democracy, 26:3, 117-138

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08854300.2012.724904

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-

and-conditions

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.
Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-
licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly
forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any
representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to
date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be
independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable
for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages
whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection
with or arising out of the use of this material.
 Food Sovereignty and Cooperatives in
Cuba’s Socialism

Rainer Schultz
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

Satisfying the basic material and cultural needs of their citizens

remains an unfulfilled promise for the majority of the world’s states.
Cuba’s 1976 Constitution (amended 1992) made this an official goal
(article 17). It also guarantees everyone a minimum supply of food,
which is the basis for all other human activities. At the height of
Soviet socialism this was assured by a combination of subsidized
imports and state distribution. As a socialist state with control over
the fundamental means of production, including most land, the
Cuban state was in a position to make the legal disposition a reality.
And in fact, just prior to the collapse of the “socialist world system,”
of which Cuba had become an integral part, it had “achieved excep-
tionally high levels of average food consumption by ‘Third World’
standards: in 1989, per capita daily consumption reached 2,834
calories” (Deere 1992: 2). Yet, only four years later, in the worst times
of the “Special Period,” this number had fallen from 98 percent to 60
percent of the necessary nutritional needs, as defined by the World
Food and Agricultural Organization (Funes 2012: 8).
Responding to this challenge, the government in 1993 decentra-
lized production and initially distributed state lands to cooperatives
(as will be discussed in this article). These measures formed part of a
process that preceded and structured the reforms that have been
enacted since 2008. In the early 1990s, the agrarian reform was confined
to “exceptional cases” where socialist ownership could be modified
in accordance with article 15 of the Constitution, that is, when it
contributes to the “development of the country” and “does not affect
the fundamental political, social and economic goals of the state.”
Hence the reassurance – also in the recent party-guidelines for the
update of the economic model – that “the economic system that pre-
vails continues to be based on socialist property” even though “other
forms of economic activities” are being recognized and encouraged,
namely: foreign investment, cooperatives, small farmers, and others
(PCC 2011).
As this article shows, cooperatives became an important part of
Cuban agriculture. Yet, while trying desperately to meet basic needs

Socialism and Democracy, Vol.26, No.3, November 2012, pp.117–138

ISSN 0885-4300 print/ISSN 1745-2635 online
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08854300.2012.724904 # 2012 The Research Group on Socialism and Democracy
 118 Socialism and Democracy

– by increasing productivity “at all costs” – the state gave new con-
sideration not only to different forms of ownership but also to ecologi-
cal and environmental concerns.
Twenty years after the collapse of the twentieth century state-
centered socialist models, Cuba is searching for a viable and sustain-
able model that overcomes its own errors from the past while learning
from experiences elsewhere, in both socialist and capitalist contexts.
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

Like all processes in real life, this one is highly contradictory and
with uncertain results. Private farmers, cooperatives, state farms and
foreign companies are all competing ‘in the field,’ as are small-scale
ecological practices, large-scale high-input modes of production as
well as genetically modified food projects.1
The goal of this article is to enrich and historicize the current debate
on cooperatives and the future of Cuban socialism. I will examine the
antecedents of current reforms in the agricultural sector, analyze the
context in which they evolved, and provide an overview of the most
recent developments. In my view, small-scale, agro-ecological farming
in a cooperative environment seems to be the most promising way to
increase productivity on a sustainable basis while also meeting local
demands and empowering the involved actors.

The problem
In the summer of 2009 Cuba’s newly inaugurated president Raúl
Castro declared food security an issue of national security
(26.7.2009). The year before, three hurricanes had devastated the
island, causing losses tantamount to 20 percent of GDP, much of it in
agriculture. That year, Cuba imported food items worth $2.2 billion
(ONE 2010).2 Since that time, the country has been striving to replace

1. For an overview of the development of GM production in Cuba and the debate on it,
see Funes and Freyre 2009 and Delgado 2012.
2. The largest share of these food imports ($0.7 billion) came from the United States,
turning it that year into the principal provider of food for the socialist state. But
partly because these exceptional and highly regulated imports from the US
(imports from Cuba are still illegal) face several obstacles (among others, payment
in cash and in advance, no previous inspection of quality, etc.) and are permitted
only since 2000 on a fragile political basis (the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export
Enhancement Act) and thus subject to political change, the Cuban government sub-
sequently decided to diversify its trading partners. Ironically, as Jorge Mario Sánchez
has pointed out and contrary to what the Cuban government expected, those US agri-
businesses that obtained an OFAC-license to trade with Cuba on a non-competitive
and guaranteed basis have less incentive to lobby for a lifting of the embargo sanc-
tions (Sánchez 2010: 97).
 Rainer Schultz 119

imports with domestic production, most importantly of food. It is in

this context that the government decided to issue a law that allowed
for the additional distribution of unused state land to individuals
and cooperatives in time-limited usufruct.3 More than half of Cuba’s
agricultural land (which is roughly half of the island’s total surface)
had become idle (3.5 million hectares), mostly as a consequence of
the demise of the sugar industry that had relied on the Soviet Union
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

for inputs. Since then and until May 2012, 1.5 million hectares have
been given to some 163,000 farmers (Cuba Debate 17.5.2012). To put
this number into context, 2.8 million Cubans or one fourth of the popu-
lation live in rural areas. This ratio may now increase, reversing the
prior trend of rural emigration to urban centers (ONE 2012).
Cuba’s socialist agriculture is often ridiculed by outside critics.
This does not always take the extreme form of Dennis Avery’s article
“Cubans starve on diet of lies” (Hudson Institute, April 9, 2009),4
which could easily be dismissed as the ideological rant of a Cold
Warrior had it not had such an impact. The author, a former State
Department employee, cites the American agricultural attaché in
Havana to present a figure according to which Cuba imports 84
percent of its food, thereby supposedly belying all Cuban efforts.
This figure has since made it into most mainstream media as a standard
and mostly unquestioned truth, and has even been echoed in some
Cuban media. In reality, this “official Cuban figure” was a statement
by then Vice-Minister of the Economy and Planning Ministry,
Magalys Calvo, for a specific year only, and referred to items in the
basic food basket and on the ration card (the part that the Cuban gov-
ernment heavily subsidizes), some of which cannot be produced in
Cuba (certain cereals, oil crops, etc.) but which is believed to cover
no more than 30 percent of actual current food consumption (Funes
Monzote 2012: 2). Based on available FAO statistics, the percentage
of imports for all food consumed in Cuba has steadily decreased
from a high of 70 percent in 1980 to some 40 percent in 1997 (the last
year for which those statistics are available), although obviously still
more is desired. In a comparative perspective, among 23 Latin Amer-
ican nations that are net food-importers, Cuba is not exceptional. In

3. Law 259 of July 2008 allows for individuals (personas naturales) a usufruct of 10 years
and 25 years for cooperatives (personas jurı́dicas), both with the option to be extended
by the same time (art. 2).
4. It argued “[Cubans] bragged about their peasant cooperatives, their biopesticides
and organic fertilizers. . .. The organic success was a lie, a great, gaudy, Commu-
nist-style Big Lie of the type that dictators behind the Iron Curtain routinely used
throughout the Cold War to hornswoggle the Free World.”
 120 Socialism and Democracy

2010, the island imported food items worth ca.$1.5 billion out of a total
of $10.6 billion of imports, that is ca. 14 percent (ONE 2010), only
slightly above the continental average. What makes the Cuban case
special however is that the state has very little liquid foreign currency
to purchase these items.5 The question then arises whether these pro-
blems are all caused by socialist policies (as claimed by many foreign
critics), and what have been the government’s responses? Before exam-
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

ining in more detail the recent changes of agricultural policies, it is

helpful to recall the historical development of Cuban agriculture
prior to the revolution in order to understand the situation and chal-
lenges to which they reacted as well as the structures the revolution
inherited.

Historical background
After colonial conquest and destruction of the prevailing indigen-
ous agriculture, Cuba has never again been self-sufficient in its food
production, nor was it expected to be. In the sixteenth century large
estates were given by the Spanish Crown to its colonists in usufruct,
mostly for cattle-raising. Only as indigenous providers of vegetables
and fruits died out, and along with them their productive forms of
intensive local gardening, known as conuco, did the Crown lease
smaller amounts of land to European and creole agricultural
workers. Sugar, timber and tobacco production soon influenced the
original land-structure, and the pre-Hispanic forest cover began to dis-
appear (some 80– 90 percent), leading to the onset of soil erosion.6 The
massive introduction of African slaves as agricultural laborers – in the
mid-nineteenth century they represented the majority of the island’s
inhabitants (Maluquer 1992: 15) – shaped Cuba’s ethnic and cultural
composition and contributed decisively to the wealth accumulated
by the sugar aristocracy. When the demand for sugar started to
increase (and possibilities for processing and transporting improved
through technical innovation) in the late eighteenth century there
was an interest to break up the big haciendas. In Marxist terms, the
revolutionizing of the mode of production required also a change in
the relations of production. Land started to become private property

5. This number is to be distinguished from the share of the value of food items as a per-
centage of total imports which is even lower. But these numbers are often conflated to
prove the unviability of the Cuban agricultural model.
6. Plants and weeds introduced by Spaniards that were exogenous to the island also led
to certain plagues and unintended negative consequences. For an excellent study of
Cuba’s environmental history, see Funes 2008.
 Rainer Schultz 121

and a commodity. In the 1820s Spain had lost most of its colonies in the
hemisphere during the wave of independence and it was then that it
allowed for a reform that converted the usufruct into private property
as a concession to creole elites, mostly however excluding the small-
scale agricultural workers thus making them landless, dependent
and precarious.7
In the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution sugar had become the
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

most important commodity to be produced in Cuba, and remained

so until the 1990s. Between 1830 and 1912 the amount of land that
was dedicated to sugar production increased 22-fold, whereas that
dedicated to “minor cultivation” (food crops) increased only 1.5
times (Zeuske 2000: 25). Since sugar production was so profitable it
was simply cheaper to import most food items, first from Spain but
increasingly, because of geographic proximity, from the United
States, a situation that prevailed until 1960. The share of US investment
in Cuban agriculture declined from 62 percent just prior to the Great
Depression in 1929 to 27 percent prior to the revolution (1958) (of a
total of 1 billion USD that year). During the same time overall owner-
ship in agriculture shifted from 2/3 US to 2/3 Cuban (Domı́nguez 1978:
67), but as US interests owned one third of all productive land as well
as some of the most modern and productive sugar mills, their influence
remained decisive.
The structural endowment (land use, size, property, infrastructure,
knowledge etc.) that evolved over time was based on the sugar indus-
try and, to a minor degree, tobacco and cattle. Most of the roads and
railroad tracks in Cuba were built to connect sugar-cane estates with
nearby ports, not with the evolving urban centers. The consequences
of this are still felt today. The large latifundios were relatively inefficient
in producing food and were gradually abandoned (leading to idle land
and speculation). In contrast, the small, diversified farms (5 to 75 hec-
tares in size) that only covered 25 percent of total agricultural area
produced half of the country’s agricultural output (Agricultural
Census of 1946 and 1951, cited in Funes 2012: 6) – a pattern that
resembles that of contemporary Cuban agriculture.
However, during the twentieth century, thanks to various reform
measures and a recovery from the devastating wars of Independence

7. This is one of the important differences from the two other scenarios of socialist tran-
sition to which that of Cuba is often compared: China and Vietnam both share rich
endogenous and millennia-long farming traditions. In different waves of emigration
from Spain, however, tens of thousands of Spaniards settled on the island, many of
them to become agricultural workers, with or without their own parcels of land.
 122 Socialism and Democracy

(1868 – 98), the share of food imports in total imports almost halved
between 1919 (37 percent) and 1958 (21 percent), and then dropped
further to 10 percent in 1987 (Funes 2012: 30f). Some attempts at agri-
cultural diversification were made, but because of high sugar
demand and thus profitability most of it was of little significance.
The expansion of the large sugar estates was met with some resistance
by the rural workers, mostly peaceful but between 1932 – 34 also mili-
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

tant action occurred that included land occupations (Grote 2004: 62).
After the Great Depression the tariff agreements with the United
States made food production in Cuba less profitable, and the country
continued to rely on imports.8 During World War II, a law was
enacted that made it mandatory for farms larger than 5 hectares to ded-
icate parts of their land to food production (Grote 2004). Cuba’s 1940
Constitution proscribed latifundios (large estates) in its article 75 but
never enacted any legislation that would make this effective.
After World War II, the economic thinking of state-led develop-
ment policies and import-substituting industrialization (ISI) within
the UN bodies, and Raúl Prebisch as head of the CEPAL (the UN’s
Economic Commission for Latin America) in particular, gained influ-
ence in Cuba as well. In the 1940s and 50s, long-time minister of agri-
culture Rodolfo Arango and his chief economist, Walter Frielingsdorf,
pointed out the necessity of agrarian reform, modernization of agricul-
ture, and state-led initiatives to develop Cuban agriculture (Grote 2004:
66f). Some legislation such as agrarian schools, and credits for coopera-
tives through an agrarian bank, was enacted under Batista’s influence
but in times of high corruption remained without much effect.9 In 1951,
a World Bank report found that 47 percent of Cuban land was owned
by 1.5 percent of the population (IBRD 1951: 88), most of it dedicated to
sugar, followed by cattle pasture. In terms of diversification to meet
local food demands, the report stated: “While some progress has
been achieved, the situation is still acute” (IBRD 1951: 94). Another
major problem was that fewer than half of all farms were owned by
those who worked on them; one third of Cuban agricultural land

8. The “Reciprocity Treaty” of 1934 that granted tariff reductions on 426 items (on the
US side 45 products), along with the “Jones-Castigan Sugar Act” “institutionalized
Cuba’s economic openness to the United States and its dependent position” (Domı́n-
guez 1978: 60).
9. In 1953 for example, the Plan for the Mechanization of Agriculture (Plan de Mecani-
zación Agrı́cola General Batista) was launched and delivered ca.1000 tractors to each
of the 126 Cuban counties (municipios). Three years later an “Agrarian Rehabilitation”
plan was announced to give 20,000 young people education and employment in rural
communities, but very little of it was put into practice (Grote 2004: 69).
 Rainer Schultz 123

was owned by US-Americans. This is one of the reasons why the rather
moderate first Agrarian Reform in May of 1959 became a major source
of conflict with US interests. Cuba’s 1940 Constitution (article 75)
foresaw the creation of and support for rural cooperatives, even the
founding of a cooperative to distribute un- or underused land in
each county – but as with many other aspects of social development,
the subsequent legislation was weak or nonexistent (Grote 2004: 226).10
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

Revolutionary changes
It was these conditions that the revolution sought to change with
its first agrarian reform in 1959. One of its major objectives was to
“facilitate the. . .extension of new products. . .that satisfy the nutritional
needs of the population” (1959, paragraph 3). The land reform was one
of the major political demands of the revolutionary movement and
along with the rural development became an important pillar of
revolutionary hegemony thereafter. Whereas before the revolution
basically all land was in private hands, by 1961 this portion had
been reduced to 58 percent.11 Thus, with the first agrarian reform
law some 40 percent passed into state hands, whereas the second
and more radical reform of 1963 limited private landholding to 67
hectares and thus put another 30 percent into the state’s hands.
In addition to the important goal of meeting food requirements of
the population, other tasks were to eradicate poverty in the countryside
(through educational, cultural and economic programs), to generate
hard currency income through the export of agricultural products,
and to obtain raw materials for industry. Despite the explicit goal of
diversifying and becoming more autonomous, the dependence in
many other matters (energy, defense, industrial development) led the
government to a continued emphasis on large-scale mono-cultural pro-
duction of a few but highly lucrative export-crops as part of what
beginning in 1976 would become internationally coordinated five-
year plans through the Soviet-led Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance. Together, sugar, tobacco and citrus covered 50 percent of

10. The bank for agrarian development (BANFAIC) did issue credits to some 5000
small-scale agricultural producers by 1954, but because of nonexistent legal titles,
rivalries, and corruption, the impact often remained limited. By the late 1950s
there were about 650 cooperatives registered in accordance with the commercial
association law (Grote 2004: 241).
11. Depending on the definition of cooperatives into which much of the expropriated
land was converted, the percentage of land that was privately owned could be as
high as 72% (Alvarez 2004a: 35).
 124 Socialism and Democracy

agricultural land (Funes 2012: 7). Although the government did encou-
rage the creation of cooperatives and especially the pooling of land
and labor through the Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA) this was
often carried out with a top-down approach where former landless
workers were encouraged to form a cooperative.12
Cuba faced two other major problems in its food production. The
first was a labor shortage, which in pre-revolutionary times had led
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

to the massive employment of African slaves, Chinese contract/debt

workers, and finally Caribbean migrants in the 1920s with wage-
labor conditions accompanied by seasonal unemployment and
misery. This labor shortage was exacerbated after the revolution as
increased educational and other opportunities drew people off the
land. The second problem was low productivity. Besides its year-
round rural workforce, Cuba relied in times of harvest on volunteers,
mobilizations, and forced labor of different kinds (students, military
and prison labor), which tended to be less skilled, motivated and pro-
ductive yet came at high transport and provision costs (Pérez et al.
1994: 207) but were part of a political and educational agenda to
overcome rural – urban and mental – manual divisions.
In order to increase productivity, the revolutionary government
opted for input-intensive, mechanized monocultures. In fact, it became
one of the most mechanized agricultures in the world, highly dependent
on fertilizers, agro-chemicals and machinery. Cuba was “a world-class
case of modernization and of the Green Revolution,” having the most
tractors per person and, for a short period, the second highest grain-
yield in Latin America (Rosset et al. 2011: 165). It made heavy use of
chemical inputs and pesticides, which in the long run exhausted the
soil and decreased yields (rice for example decreased from its peak in
1980 by almost 20 percent in 10 years (Machı́n et al. 2010: 41).13
Between 50 and 80 percent of these inputs were imported from socialist
countries (Machı́n et al. 2010: 44). However, these choices came at
enormous cost: one fourth of all investments made by the Cuban govern-
ment between 1959 and 1988 went into agriculture, even though the
growth of agricultural production constantly lagged behind that of the

12. This approach is also reflected in article 43 of the 1959 Agrarian Reform Law: “The
agrarian cooperatives that the INRA organizes on the lands that it disposes of by
virtue of his law will be under its direction. It reserves the right to assign adminis-
trators to those lands. . .until they are given more autonomy by law.”
13. The “Agrarian Thesis” of the first Communist Party Congress in 1975 proclaimed
proudly: “The ample use of chemicals. . .is another expression of technical progress
in agriculture.. . . The application of fertilizers has increased six-fold in relation to
the capitalist era” (PCC 1976).
 Rainer Schultz 125

economy as a whole, declining considerably in the 1980s when the peak

of soil productivity had been passed (Machı́n et al. 2010: 40f). Plant
plagues resulting from monoculture had heavy costs.14

Cooperatives as a “superior form of socialism”

In 1975 during the first party congress an effort was made to move
the remaining private peasants into collective agriculture, abandoning
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

their small-scale production in favor of large-scale, mechanized pro-

jects that would be state-coordinated and would represent a “superior
form of production” (PCC 1976). The Communist party believed that
individually owned small plots would hinder mechanization and the
large-scale irrigation projects needed for monoculture production.
Small-holders would have two options: either to sell their land to the
state and join the large-scale state farms (granjas estatales), thereby
enjoying advantages of having easier access to their infrastructure
(daycare facilities, schools, policlinics etc.), or pool land and labor
and be part of a coordinated national production scheme with better
systems of irrigation, fertilization etc. These would result in the
so-called agricultural production cooperatives (CPA). However,
Cuban communist policy, unlike that of some other socialist countries,
explicitly recognized the right of the peasants to keep working their
land individually based on the assumption that eventually they
would gain consciousness, and be willing to continue producing for
the national economy and enjoy some of the benefits of the larger
state-led production units. To those who opted to retain their private
property the state would give material and technical assistance.
Most private peasants had become members of the small farmers
association ANAP (founded in 1961), which represented them politi-
cally, provided assistance, etc. and many had joined the Credit and
Service Cooperatives (CCS) where they would be integrated into the
national production and marketing scheme through the state market-
ing agency Acopio.15 Whereas in the CPA cooperatives land is owned

14. As a result, in the 1990s, three fourths of agricultural land was declared to be of low
or very low productivity (Soil Institute 2001, cited in Machı́n et al. 2010: 43). Cuban
agriculture also suffered from chemical and biological warfare waged by the US. For
extensive documentation on this, see Blum 1995: 188f.
15. Only in 1980, with the opening of Free Farmers’ Markets, was there a legal alternative
for items produced in excess of the contracted quantities. Six years later, 332 such
markets had been established countrywide (Alvarez 2004a: 144). At that point
however they were abandoned again as part of the beginning “rectification process,”
citing increased corruption, lack of transparent and functioning supply-channels,
and unmet goals of state delivery as reasons. They would be reopened in 1994.
 126 Socialism and Democracy

and worked collectively, in the CCS cooperatives, credits, work tools,

seeds, etc. are organized collectively but land is owned and worked
individually. By mid-1963 there were about 500 CCSs with about
50,000 members and half a million hectares. In 1998 their number
had grown to almost 3000 cooperatives with some 160,000 members
and almost one million hectares (Alvarez 2004b: 7). In addition to
these cooperative-affiliated peasants, there remained about 200,000
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

individual farmers after the second agrarian reform in 1963 who

would sell their products officially only to the state and would
receive inputs (such as seeds) from it. In 1993, when the new reform
process started they controlled about 10 percent of the agricultural
land (Alvarez 2004b: 7).

The forced end of centralized state-socialist agriculture

When the European socialist states and their trade with Cuba col-
lapsed (trade went down by 80 percent; GDP fell by 35 percent after
1990) and as the US embargo/blockade intensified in the 1990s, Cuba
experienced conditions of scarcity and insecurity comparable to
those of wartime. (Hence the official name of this phase as Special
Period in Peacetime – as most of its centralized distribution measures
were based on military contingency plans.) It had to rethink its entire
agricultural system and as a result returned to traditional agriculture
and less input-intensive forms of production. The forced reduction
by 80 percent of fertilizers and pesticides had serious consequences
for the production of export crops, which in turn dramatically
reduced government revenues. Food imports and the capacity to pay
for them had also fallen. Foreign purchase capacity had decreased
by 80 percent, from $8.1 billion in 1989 to $1.7 billion in 1993. In
that year $440 million had to be spent for basic foods alone (Funes
2012: 8). The “Special Period” had begun. Serious food shortages
began to occur, calorie-intake went down almost to half of the FAO-
recommended average, and diseases reappeared. In this situation,
and enticed by the Cuban Adjustment Act in August 1994, some
30,000 Cubans left the island on self-made rafts. Minister of Defense
Raúl Castro declared: “Today, the principal political, military and ideo-
logical task for all revolutionary Cubans is. . .to guarantee food for the
people” (Granma, 4.8.1994). In a way this can be considered the first
declaration that food supply was an issue of national security.
Since it was believed that smaller units of production could more
easily adapt to changes and experimentation, the large-scale state
farms were broken up and subdivided. In 1989, on the eve of the
 Rainer Schultz 127

“Special Period,” 78 percent of arable land was in state hands, 10

percent in agricultural production cooperatives, and 12 percent in indi-
vidual farms. This pattern would be reversed in the following years.
Under the adverse conditions of the “Special Period” a new form of
regulation of agriculture evolved that was a reaction both to ongoing
practices and to insights from studies. Several important and little-
known experimental projects were begun.16 In late 1990 as part of the
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

National Food Program, some 150,000 residents of Havana partici-

pated in nearby agricultural projects, designed to motivate them to per-
manently live and work in the countryside (Pérez et al. 1994). A
guaranteed salary, better and more diverse meals than in the city,
and housing were part of the incentives. Contrary to the still wide-
spread assumption that socialist Cuba only knows standardized sal-
aries, new forms of payment (geared to productivity and output)
were introduced already in 1991, though their application and results
varied (often due to the very unstable and short-term urban labor
force). Between 1992 and 1993 all state farms were divided into
smaller units of production (basic production units, UPB), then
further subdivided, making small work teams directly responsible
for each unit. However, while more autonomy was granted to the
managers, a detailed case study, based on interviews and surveys of
different farms in various provinces of Cuba, found that the “decentra-
lization of management did not go hand in hand with greater worker
participation” (Pérez et al. 1994: 204). Other studies showed that the
lack of representation and participation contributed to increased
absenteeism and lower productivity.17

Cooperatives and decentralization

In September 1993 the Council of Ministers allowed for the creation
of Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UPBC) where collectives of
workers were to be leased (rent-free) state farm lands in long-term usu-
fruct and given relative autonomy over their management, receiving
credits and means of production from the state (Law 142). It also
allowed small parcels to be used by individuals for their own

16. For a good summary, see Pérez et al. 1994. To counter oil scarcity and the lack of
tractors, for example, a program for using oxen was launched that included
100,000 of them in 1991 alone (Pérez et al. 1994: 214).
17. In a survey of more than 700 cooperative-members in the central province of Las
Villas, only 36 percent felt that they were part of important decision-making and
one third considered that this was the cause of lost opportunities to increase pro-
duction (Figueroa and Santana 2005: 243).
 128 Socialism and Democracy

consumption. This was the beginning of the end of the directly state-
administered agricultural model. Whereas in 1990 the state still directly
administered 78 percent of all agricultural land in use, 10 years later
this was reduced to one third (ONE 2010). This process of change is
thus also called the “Silent Third Agrarian Reform,” because without
being named or declared as such, it fundamentally reversed the own-
ership-structure (Funes 2012: 10). It is interesting to observe that the
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

wording of the reforms at the time suggested temporal limitations:

The creation of UPBCs was justified by the constitutional right that
the state may “exceptionally” transfer “socialist state property of all
the people” to natural and juridical persons. Decree-Law 142 (Septem-
ber 1993) declared its purpose as part of the work in the Special Period
“to make agriculture. . .more efficient . . . and to motivate [producers]
to deliver their surplus production.”
However, at that time the production of these cooperatives beyond
subsistence could only be sold to the state marketing agency (acopio),
with which they had to sign contracts. Whereas individual peasants
and members of other cooperatives would be part of the small
farmers association (ANAP), UBPC members would remain part of
the agricultural union. They would be allowed to vote on their own
management and on the admission of new cooperative members.18
One major initial restriction, however, was not being able to change
the usage of land (mostly sugar cane).
In addition to this development and in a reversal of earlier policies,
small parcels of land would now be leased for individual subsistence
(initially limited to 0.15 hectares). This often required a bureaucratic
process which is why unauthorized land-occupation took place (Pérez
et al. 1994: 212). Already in the 1990s some 80,000 farms were given in
usufruct to individuals and cooperatives. In addition some 383,000
urban farms, covering 50,000 hectares of land have been created since.
Together they now supply 70 percent of all fresh vegetables consumed
in cities such as Havana (Altieri and Funes-Monzote 2012: 23–24). Simi-
larly, a grassroots initiative aimed at self-provisioning of rice (a basic
food item), called arroz popular, gained influence. By 1997, some 75,000
independent producers harvested 140,000 tons of rice whereas the
state Union of Rice Enterprises only produced 10 percent more despite
costly inputs (Granma 1998, cited in Funes 2012: 14).

18. In practice, the former administrator of the state farms from which they had
emerged would usually be proposed for this post by the Ministry of Agriculture,
but in many cases this proposal was rejected by the cooperative constituency,
taking advantage of their new participatory rights (Pérez et al. 1994: 208).
 Rainer Schultz 129

In 2000, towards the end of the first cycle of reforms of the 1990s,
economist Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva concluded that the results
of the transformations could be evaluated “as positive” (2000: 101),
despite slow evolution and remaining problems especially in the duality
of operating systems (state and market). He mentions among some of
the positive changes: reduction of loss-subsidies, growth of an important
part of agricultural production (vegetables +42 percent, tobacco +22
percent, beans +16 percent. [Pérez Villanueva 2000: 96]), better usage of
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

soils, change in administration and forms of salaries, restructuring and

downscaling of the units of agricultural production, and democratization
of the production process (Pérez Villanueva 2000: 101).

Cuba’s current changes

When in 2002 the strategic decision was taken to dismantle half of
Cuba’s sugar mills, much of the associated land became idle. Thus the
state had some 3.5 million hectares of land in its possession that ceased
to be used. Methods of distributing this land to people willing to work
on it and produce food were developed. That same year, a new agricul-
tural bill was passed that strengthened the role of the CCS – that had
previously been insufficiently regulated by Law 36 (from 1982). The
new law (95/2002) defined the increased distributions of profits and
regulated the amount of products that can be sold in private markets
and the amount owed to the state.19 By 2006 the peasant sector while
only covering 25 percent of agricultural land, produced over 65
percent of the country’s food.
It is in this context of newly available land and the continued need
to replace food imports, and in light of evidence that small-scale non-
state production is relatively more efficient, that the much-referred-to
Law 259 was promulgated in 2008. In effect it is taking the 1993 land
reform a step further. While the first step was to decentralize and
create new cooperatives with (limited) autonomy out of former state-
farms, now the land would be given primarily to individuals. Yet,
through credit policies and also by increasing the time-span that coop-
eratives may hold usufruct, the law tries to encourage the creation
of cooperatives. Since then, as mentioned before, half of the unused
agricultural land has been made available to some 160,000 persons.
Nationwide women are now some 20 percent of the agricultural
workforce, which is about half the world average (43 percent),

19. For a well informed and detailed discussion of the lawmaking process, in which
there are long consultative phases, see Roman 2005.
 130 Socialism and Democracy

according to FAO statistics (IPS [Inter Press Service], 14.11.2011). Almost

half of those who had recently been granted land are new to agricul-
tural work (Juventud Rebelde, 10.11.2011). Thus besides credits a
process of guidance and technical assistance will be necessary to fam-
iliarize them with agricultural techniques.
The Cuban banks have meanwhile extended their program of
microcredits to small farmers. Even though no exact numbers have
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

been given, Ileana Estévez, president of the Cuban Bank for Credit
and Commerce (BANDEC) with 203 branches in the country, con-
firmed that “several million pesos” have been distributed since the
renewal of the program in 2009. During the same period, more than
15,000 loans have been given, and the number of loans solicited has
increased by more than 80 percent (Juventud Rebelde, 10.11.2011). Inter-
est rates are fixed between 3 –5 percent depending on the duration and
purpose of the credit. According to Estévez, most applications were
given after a visit to the farm and fulfillment of legal requirements.
Usually the expected harvest serves as a security and only less than
1 percent did not fulfill their legal obligations (Juventud Rebelde,
10.11.2011).20
Since the beginning of land reforms in the 1990s, there are now
three sectors of agricultural production, according to their forms of
property and administration: (1) the state sector; (2) the non-state
sector (including both collective and individual production); and (3)
the mixed sector with joint ventures between the Cuban state and
foreign capital. The state sector includes21 the traditional state farms,
farms run by state institutions such as the armed forces, the ministry
of interior etc., and the self-provisioning farms of public institutions
such as schools. Collective production comprises the aforementioned
UBPC and the CPA. Individual production can be in the form of
CCS cooperatives, individual farmers with private property (from

20. Interesting details of this practice and its challenges can now also be read in the
Cuban press. In its amplified Friday edition, the party’s official daily, Granma, pub-
lishes letters, often complaints, by readers and the responses by the affected state
institutions. In one recent case, a very critical new peasant from the Province of
Matanzas complained about not being able to obtain a credit and blamed Cuban
bureaucracy. The bank’s reply however detailed that the initial complaint had
been submitted even before the paperwork was given to the bank. In addition,
after an onsite visit to his new pig farm, officials discovered several unauthorized
constructions. But most importantly, the farmer wanted to use his own house as
security for the loan – something the Cuban Constitution does not allow so that
no one may be evicted for credit default (Granma, 13.07.2012).
21. For a useful overview, see Alvarez 2004a.
 Rainer Schultz 131

before the revolution), and now increasingly, individual farmers in

usufruct.
Foreign Investment in Cuba had already been legalized in 1982
(Law 52), in the context of an increasing foreign debt and problems
in obtaining credits. The first joint venture though was only established
in 1988. Legalization was reiterated in the constitutional changes of
1992. However, only in 1995 (Law 77) were explicit guarantees
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

extended to foreign investors, in a desperate bid to attract foreign

capital in times of the post-Soviet crisis and intensified US embargo.
Ten years later there were some 500 foreign associations conducting
business in Cuba (Alvarez 2004a: 114). There is conflicting and contra-
dictory information as to how many are involved in agriculture;
numbers range between 10 and 50. The biggest investments, besides
sugar derivatives (ca.$300 million annually), are in tobacco (Spain
and Brazil, ca.$40 million), and citrus (Israel, $22 million) (Alvarez
2004a: 118 – 27).
Besides foreign large-scale agricultural investment there is also
individual and state-financed support from abroad for individual
farms in Cuba. Cubans living in other countries, mostly the US, facili-
tate through their remittances investment in new and existing agricul-
tural farms. In 1997 an “independent farmers’ alliance” was founded in
Granma Province that claimed to support those who try to produce
and sell outside the official channels. A year later a support network
was founded in Florida that in April 1999 received a grant from the
National Endowment for Democracy. In 2003 there were about 19
farms that belonged to the alliance, with sizes varying between 10
and 50 hectares and with similar numbers of members in each
cooperative (Alvarez 2004a: 197).
Whereas for the time period 2005 – 10, the growth rate for most
crops of the state sector was in fact negative (except rice), in the non-
state sector the results were more mixed and positive: plantain, rice,
and papaya increased, and milk production increased by almost one
third, as did the number of cows and pigs raised in non-state farms
(ONE 2010). The limited available data suggest that results are much
more differentiated, but few analysts bother to look into the details.22
In the first Trimester of 2011, production of agricultural goods

22. The problem is that available Cuban statistics are not fine-tuned enough to make
more significant observations. The national statistics distinguish only between
state and non-state forms of production even though there are huge differences
between a large-scale input-dependent cooperative and a small-scale organic
farm. The other distinction made is according to different kinds of produce, but
without distinguishing between different forms of production.
 132 Socialism and Democracy

increased by 14 percent (CEPAL 2011: 4), which according to CEPAL is

primarily driven by the non-state sector and the government’s decision
to pay higher prices in their contracts.
Aside from its impact on soil, environment and human beings, the
large-scale mono-crop, mechanized agriculture is also more vulnerable
to natural disasters. So when in 2008 hurricanes devastated the island,
surveys in the Provinces of Las Tunas and Holguı́n showed that the
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

losses of smaller and more diversified farms were only 50 percent

compared to 90 – 100 percent on monoculture farms (Funes 2012: 6).

Insufficiencies, critiques and further reforms

The lack of a “sense of ownership” for the new agricultural
workers is often criticized by outside analysts and also by Cuban econ-
omists. Two other issues of concern are limitations of land-size and
time that the land will be given in usufruct. As long as the land that
is currently being distributed by the state will only be in usufruct,
investments made will be minimal, says agricultural economist
Armando Nova (2012: 82f). Often, the 10 year usufruct, despite the
possibility of renewal, has been rejected as insufficient. As a response
to this critique it was recently decided to extend the duration for the
usufruct and also to increase the maximum amount of land that can
be held by one entity.23
In addition, more attention should be given to infrastructural devel-
opments, making it possible both for agricultural workers to live on or
near the farms (repopulation of the countryside) and also to improve
storage, processing and transport facilities. Such improvement of pro-
duction conditions needs to be matched in the sphere of trade. Econom-
ist Omar Pérez Villanueva had already identified the lack of transport
cooperatives, during the first phase of agrarian reforms in the 1990s,
as a “major insufficiency.” According to him, “the socialization of pro-
duction within small units. . .should be followed by a similar process
in the commercial sphere for the additional agricultural production”
that goes beyond what has to be delivered to the state agencies (2000:
93). The new party guidelines of 2011 foresee the creation of “second
degree” cooperatives (cooperatives of second degree, guideline #29).
These are supposed to carry out “complementary activities” such as
“purchase and sale” (compra y venta) in order to “achieve a higher

23. Raúl Castro, in his Parliamentary Speech in July 2012, announced that “based on
accumulated experiences” the maximum size of land in usufruct “for those who
are linked to state farms, UPBC or CPA” would be extended to 67 hectares
(Granma 24.7.2012: 4).
 Rainer Schultz 133

efficiency.” Their commercial partners will be the first-degree produ-

cing cooperatives. The new law on cooperatives that Vice-Minister
Murillo announced is expected to regulate these activities in detail.

The new cooperatives in Cuba

Cuba’s sixth party congress (April 2011) highlighted the importance
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

of cooperatives in its struggle to advance “economic development” and

“the quality of life of its population” (PCC 2011: 5). “Socialist property of
the entire people over the fundamental means of production” would
continue to be fundamental. However, in addition it recognizes
foreign investment, cooperatives, and small farmworkers, among
others as forms of ownership and production. Cooperatives of “first
degree” – “with the objective to produce and offer useful services to
society” – are said to be created “in different sectors” where they can
have commercial ties with state and non-state entities (guideline #27)
and sell their products and services freely once they have fulfilled
their “obligations to the state.” Future juridical norms are supposed to
prevent the sale or subordination of the cooperatives (#25) as well as
regulate the sharing of revenues among their members (#28). Coopera-
tives of a “second degree” are composed of first-degree cooperatives in
order to “add value to the services and products” or carry out sales
(#29). This is expected to help, improve, or even replace the much-criti-
cized state-run acopio (commercialization) system.
Legislation to regulate these new forms of cooperatives and extend
them for the first time into economic activities beyond agriculture is
reported to be in discussion and preparation (IPS 12.7.2012), but no
official information on the details is given yet.24 At a recent conference
on Agrarian Law in Havana, several legal specialists who work as advi-
sers for cooperatives or governmental agencies involved in issues of
commerce discussed shortcomings of the current legal framework.25
They especially emphasized the outdated and inflexible contracts

24. Vice-President of the Council of Ministers Marino Murillo confirmed in March 2012
that the new law for cooperatives is close to being made public (IPS, 27.3.2012). But
as in other spheres of anticipated change, this involves a complex juridical reform
that, according to José Garea Alonso, Vice-President of the Cuban Society of Agrar-
ian Law, would require a reform of the Cuban Constitution, which does not cur-
rently recognize cooperatives other than agriculture-based and does not allow for
collective ownership of major means of production other than land.
25. For example the presentation of Lic. Juan Suárez, legal advisor of Mixed Crop Firm,
“Urge perfeccionar el procedimiento de negociación en las entdidades económicas
cubanas del sector agricola.”
 134 Socialism and Democracy

that limit cooperatives in their diversity and in their capacity to grow

various and different products, according to changing conditions
(climatic, seeds, plagues, etc.).26 Furthermore, my impression is that
whereas in many other countries the founding of a cooperative is
often associated with a political movement and strong political con-
sciousness, in Cuba it seems to be born more out of practical necessity
and pragmatic considerations, despite the afore-described experience
in agricultural cooperation.27 The new non-state sector and, within it,
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

the cooperatives are also seen as a sector which will potentially

absorb parts of the projected 1.8 million state employees who are in
the process of being reallocated.
However, despite some important exceptions, there is thus far not
a widespread public debate on the political significance that a renewed,
expanded and more autonomous form of cooperativism might have for
sustainable development. Even though cooperatives in Cuba are
defined as a form of socialist property, the party-guidelines refer to
them only in economic and legal terms, and there is little reference to
methods of enhancing participation, local decision-making, and other
forms of “socialist renewal.” However, in legal and institutional
terms, sociologist Boaventura Sousa Santos’s affirmation shortly after
Raúl Castro’s inauguration as President in 2008 that “[I]n this situation
there is no encouragement for the development of the cooperative and
communitarian economic and social relations that are so promising”
(2009: 48) no longer holds true. As an “experimental state” Cuba
does now recognize and encourage different forms of ownership,
including cooperatives.
Another important theme of debate in Cuba is the exchange of
experiences in different forms of cooperatives in other Latin American
countries that takes place at conferences, workshops and also in
various publications.28 Several of the Latin American participants at
the Havana conference emphasized the contradictory character of

26. Congreso Internacional de Derecho Agrario, Havana, 24– 26 April 2012 (notes by the
author).
27. Other analysts of Cuban cooperative development share similar impressions:
Marcelo Vieta states, based on recent interviews with analysts and actors in Cuba:
“many Cubans do indeed have experience with agricultural co-ops or urban
agricultural co-ops,” but “most of these experiences, I was told, have been, up till
now, top-down or party-led” (Vieta 2012).
28. See Piñeiro 2011 on cooperativism in Cuba and Latin America; also the same
author’s recent contribution on the role of cooperatives in the new Cuban economic
model, published in the journal Temas, http://www.temas.cult.cu/catalejo/
economia/Camila_Pineiro.pdf, and the reports and analysis by Canadian agrono-
mist Wendy Holm at http://www.wendyholm.com/cuba.coop.path.
 Rainer Schultz 135

their cooperatives within a neoliberal market economy where they are

increasingly forced to prioritize profit-mechanisms over more social,
ecological and political goals.29 Reflections on the more fundamental
values and objectives of a cooperative in a Marxist sense, that is, as
an “associated mode of production” (MEW 25: 456) in which “the
free development of each is the condition for the free development of
all” (Manifesto, MEW 4: 482), remain rare. Marx and Engels’ reflections
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

on these issues are complex and multidimensional: while they do

emphasize the cooperative (genossenschaftliche) mode of production as
part of a post-capitalist society, they at the same time foresaw that
this formation will still be characterized “in its economic, moral,
mental state” by the capitalist society out of which it emerged (Critique
of the Gotha Programme, MEW 19: 19f). The contribution of cooperatives
to a fundamental transformation of social relations will be limited as
long as they remain either isolated from broader political changes or
protected by and thus dependent on the (bourgeois) state or its insti-
tutions (MEW 16: 195f). Under these conditions, they will be forced
to assimilate the mechanisms of capitalist accumulation in their exter-
nal relations even if in their internal organization they might have
superseded the basic contradiction of capital and labor (Capital III,
MEW 25: 456).30
In Cuba, the fundamental means of production are still in the hands
of the state, and – according to the party guidelines as well as the
constitution – will remain so. However, as Raúl Castro self-critically
affirmed in a speech, these principles “have been treated as absolute”
since the beginning of the revolution and are currently being reversed
and diversified (Raúl Castro, 18.12.2010). As Sousa Santos put it, “a
socialist society is not socialist because all its social and economic
relations are socialist but because the latter determine how all other
relations in society operate” (Sousa Santos 2009: 48). In this sense,
Lenin had highlighted the enormous strategic importance of cooperatives
for a society that would differ from capitalism. The conditions under
which Lenin implemented the New Economic Policy can be compared

29. Tayde Morale Santos, “Contradicciones sociológico-júridicas entre relaciones coop-

erativistas y capitalistas” (paper presented at Congreso Internacional de Derecho
Agrario, Havana, 24–26 April, 2012).
30. As is well known, Marx and Engels never gave prescriptions for future political
scenarios. In some of their analysis and correspondence on current developments,
however, they emphasized the value of cooperative agricultural production in
large-scale farms that would be expropriated in a period of transition, but at the
same time they warned against any forms of forced expropriation of people who
work their land (MEW 22: 499; 36: 426).
 136 Socialism and Democracy

to those of Cuba’s Special Period (Schultz 2008: 403). In response to

hardship and to scarcity of financial resources and technology, and in
order to reanimate the economy, the state retreated to “the commanding
heights” and tried to “build communism with non-communist hands”
(LW 33: 278), giving importance to the principle of free enterprise and
trade and allowing for foreign investment. In defending this approach,
Lenin also warned against underrating cooperatives as a means of
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

organizing production that overcomes the private-individualist form

and because it is “the simplest, easiest and most acceptable to the
peasant.” He recommended that a number of “economic, banking and
financial privileges” be granted to the cooperatives. Besides reorganizing
the state and adapting it to the new situation, he argued that a form of
“cultural revolution” that involves educational and material aspects
would also be necessary (“On Cooperatives,” 1923).
In today’s Cuba, the recent debates, the teaching of cooperatives in
university and school courses,31 as well as the media coverage of the
newly emerging cooperative development, helped by the credit
program and technical guidance to this sector, can be seen as steps to
raise consciousness and create conditions for the development of
cooperatives. A dialogue with cooperativistas from other countries, on
their experiences, achievements, contradictions and aspirations will
be helpful for the renewal of Cuba’s social and economic relations
and to promote a sustainable development where the satisfaction of
the basic material and cultural needs, including food sovereignty,
becomes a reality – one that might also inspire others.

References
Altieri, Miguel A., and Fernando R. Funes-Monzote. 2012. “The Paradox of
Cuban Agriculture,” Monthly Review Vol. 63, No. 8 (January): 23–33.
Alvarez, José. 2004a. Cuba’s Agricultural Sector. Gainesville, FL: University Press
of Florida.
Alvarez, José. 2004b. “Transformations in Cuba’s Agriculture after 1959.” EDIS
document FE481, a publication of the Department of Food and Resource
Economics, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, UF/IFAS, University
of Florida, Gainesville.
Blum, William. 1995. Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World
War II, 2nd ed. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press.

31. A Master’s degree in Cooperativism has been developed at the University of

Havana that operates with educational centers from Mexico and Canada. Two-
thirds of its students are from rural communities, 40 percent women (Maritza
McCormack Bequer, “La Enseñanza del Derecho Agrario en Cuba”).
 Rainer Schultz 137

CEPAL. 2011. Cuba. Evõluciõn ecõnõmica durante 2010 y perspectivas para

2011. Available from: http://www.eclacl.cl
Deere, Carmen Diana. 1992. Socialism on One Island? Cuba’s National Food
Program and Its Prospects for Food Security, Working Paper Series 124,
Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.
Delgado Dı́az, Carlos Jesús. 2012. “Elocuencia del silencio. ¿Qué nos enseña el
debate sobre los cultivos transgénicos?” Temas no. 69 (January–March): 56–64.
Domı́nguez, Jorge I. 1978. Cuba: Order and Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

University Press.
Figueroa Albelo, Vı́ctor, and Santiago Alemán Santana. 2005. El modelo coopera-
tivo campesino en Cuba. Havana: Editorial Politica.
Funes Monzote, Fernando. 2012. Towards Sustainable Agriculture in Cuba, Manu-
script. Universidad de Salamanca http://campus.usal.es/~ehe/Papers/
Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Towards%20sustainable%20agriculture%20in%
20Cuba%201st%20August%5B1%5D.pdf.
Funes Monzote, Fernando, and Edudardo Freyre Roach. 2009. Transgénicos.
Qué se gana? Qué se pierde? Textos para un debate en Cuba. Havana: Publica-
ciones Acuario Centro Felix Varela.
Funes Monzote, Reinaldo. 2008. From Rainforest to Cane Field in Cuba: An
Environmental History since 1492. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press.
Grote, Bettina. 2004. Zwischen Heldenkult und Marginalisierung: Kleinbauern und
Genossenschaften in Kuba 1940– 1963. Norderstedt: Books on Demand.
IBRD. 1951. Report on Cuba. Findings and recommendations of an economic and
technical mission organized by the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development in collaboration with the government of Cuba in 1950. Baltimore:
IBRD.
LW. various. Lenin Werke (Collected Works), various years and volumes, Berlin:
Dietz Verlag.
Machı́n Sosa, Braulio, et al. 2010. Revolución agroecológica: el movimiento de cam-
pesino a campesino de la ANAP en Cuba. Cuando el campesino ve, hace fe.
Havana: ANAP and La Vı́a Campesina.
Maluquer de Motes, Jordi. 1992. Nacion e inmigración, los españoles en Cuba (siglos
XIX y XX). Oviedo: Ediciones Jucar.
MEW. various. Marx Engels Werke (Collected Works). Berlin: Dietz Verlag.
Nova González, Armando. 2012. “Cuban Agriculture Reforms after 2007,” in
Jorge I. Domı́nguez et al. (eds.) Cuban Economic and Social Development:
Policy Reforms and Challenges in the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: David
Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies: 75– 106.
ONE. various years. Oficina Nacional de Estadı́sticas, Anuario Anual, Havana,
http://www.one.cu/.
PCC. 1976. I Congreso del PCC: Tesis y Resoluciones. Sobre la cuestión agraria y las
relaciones con el campesinado. La Habana: Departamento de Orientación
Revolucionaria del Comité Central del PCC.
PCC. 2011. VI Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba. Linieamientos de la Polı́-
tica Económica y Social del Partido. Aprobado el 18 de Abril de 2011. Havana.
 138 Socialism and Democracy

Pérez, Niurka et al. 1994. “The View from Below: Cuban Agriculture in the
‘Special Period in Peacetime,’” Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2
(January): 194– 234.
Pérez Villanueva, Omar Everleny. 2000. “La reestructuración de la economı́a
cubana. El proceso en la agricultura,” in: Hans-Jürgen Burchardt (ed.),
La última reforma agraria del siglo. Caracas: Nueva Sociedad: 71–105.
Piñeiro Harnecker, Camila. (ed.). 2011. Cooperativas y socialismo: una mirada
desde Cuba. Havana: Editorial Caminos.
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 13:44 23 November 2012

Roman, Peter. 2005. “The Lawmaking Process in Cuba: Debating the Bill on
Agricultural Cooperatives,” Socialism and Democracy, Vol.19. No. 2 (July):
37–56.
Roman, Peter. 2005. “The Lawmaking Process in Cuba: Debating the Bill on
Agricultural Cooperatives,” Socialism and Democracy, Vol.19. No. 2 (July):
37–56.
Rosset, Peter M. et. al. 2011. “The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology
movement of ANAP in Cuba: Social process methodology in the construc-
tion of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty,” Journal of
Peasant Studies, Vol. 38, No. 1 (January): 161– 91.
Sanchez, Jorge Mario. 2010. “Las relaciones económicas Estados Unidos-Cuba.
La normalización pendiente,” Temas 62 –63 (April –September): 90–102.
Schultz, Rainer. 2008. “Kubas Neue Ökonomische Politik” (Cuba’s New
Economic Policy), Das Argument 276: 403 –13.
Sousa Santos, Boaventura. 2009. “Why has Cuba become a difficult problem
for the Left?” Latin American Perspectives, Issue 166, Vol. 36, No. 3 (May):
43–53.
Vieta, Marcelo. 2012. “Cuba’s Coming Co-operative Economy? Reflections
from two recent field trips,” The Bullet. Socialist Project. E-Bulletin
No. 667, July 18.
Zeuske, Max. 2000. “Notas retrospectivas sobre la sociedad agraria cubana en
los siglos XIX y XX”, in Hans-Jürgen Burchardt (ed.) La última reforma
agraria del siglo, Carácas: Nueva Sociedad: 23–33.