Cuba's accidental revolution

Mike Carter suggests that a recent film on sustainable agriculture in Cuba raises some useful questions and offers possible solutions for students of international development.

Cuba: The Accidental Revolution. Part 1. Sustainable Agriculture
Written and directed by Ray Burley
Bullfrog Films, 2007
Part 1 of a two-part series. 45 minutes


Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. If you have to, the theory goes, you do. But history doesn't necessarily bear out the theory, when it comes to whole societies and countries making adjustments in response to circumstances largely beyond their control.

For Cuba in 1989, the imperative came with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. In effect, supplies of fuel, fertiliser and chemicals dried up overnight. Massive food shortages followed in the immediate aftermath. But in time, Cuba transformed its agricultural policy and practice from an industrialised, high-input, highly subsidized, low productivity system to one that is more sustainable and productive.

This film charts the transformation. It sets the scene, outlining Cuba's history and three phases of foreign influence and the impact on farming systems. Over 400 years, Spanish colonisation meant the clearing of forests and native peoples to make way for sugar and cattle farms worked by slaves. From 1898, US influence took over, with the domination of production for export, sugar and tropical fruits, at the expense of domestic food production, resulting in dependence on food imports, widespread poverty, inequity and unrest.

Following the overthrow of the Batista government in 1958, Cuba became wedded to the Soviet model with state ownership of land and large collective farms producing sugar for export on preferential terms in exchange for subsidised machinery, fuel, chemical inputs and ideas. The house of cards, of course, came tumbling down in 1989.with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. There followed what was called somewhat ironically, the 'special period'; a period of adjustment that would test the social fabric beyond breaking of most (or any) other nations. And the coincidence of US trade embargo with Cuban didn't help. Or did it?

The transformation in policy and practice over the last 20 years makes for a fascinating case study. The actual technologies adopted by Cuban farmers and described in the film are nothing particularly new. Animal traction became widespread again (with strict control of cattle slaughter resulting in severe meat shortages). Polyculture replaced monoculture, mimicking the diversity and three dimensions of natural systems. In other words, production became, perforce of circumstance, essentially organic, maximising the use of manures, composting, rotations and nitrogen fixing legumes. High input feedlot livestock farms shut down, replaced by low external input systems with local rather than exotic breeds, and using crop waste, browse and pasture legumes, for example with fodder 'pedestal' hedges. Pest control methods shifted to mechanical methods, localised bio-control and companion planting.

These and other technologies are well known to the agricultural student. What makes the Cuban case study unique is its scale. After all we're not talking about an individual farm or just a sector of the industry. We are talking about a whole country totally reforming farming and food production. Few, if any, countries, especially those wedded to fossil fuel-dependent production systems, would be confident that they could make a similar volte-face without drastic food shortages and serious social unrest.

So what's so special about this case study? Rapidly implemented land reform saw the break-up of state farms into cooperatives and small household units; in effect access to land was not an issue for anyone wanting to farm. The film goes on to describe how, with no fuel available for transporting food from rural areas to the towns and cities, Cuba switched to growing the food where the people were: urban agriculture mushroomed on a large scale. Pragmatism allowed a degree of entrepreneurship previously suppressed; producers were allowed to sell their surplus through farmers markets and, in so doing, earn several times the average wage.

Equally remarkable within such a short time period was the paradigm shift in state education, extension and research institutions as they adapted rapidly to urgently changing needs. The inertia of these institutions in most countries is well-known; so the rapid shift in Cuba from conventional, industrial farming systems to agro-ecological principles is little short of extraordinary. Change has to be led and managed. Mindsets of professionals, of teachers, of advisers, of administrators and managers, must adapt. Indigenous knowledge, on the verge of being lost in the mists of time, has to be revived. School and college curricula and assessment systems have to be redeveloped. Research must be reprioritised towards on-farm research focused particularly on the smallholder farmer.

So this is a useful film for undergraduate and high school teaching of human geography and agriculture. Its somewhat uncritically positive note needs redressing in the classroom through the discussion that should follow. What was the impact of the reforms? How self-sufficient is Cuba today in terms of essential foodstuffs? What basics does Cuba still need to import (rice, beans, meat and dairy products, vegetable oils, livestock feed)? How do nutritional intake levels compare with needs? How does Cuba compare with other Latin American countries? How has the balance between social equity and personal liberty been managed? And what have been the consequences of policies implemented; in terms, for example, of contentment, migration or the open and hidden economies?


Mike Carter is Associate Consultant in sustainable development and aid effectiveness at the Centre for International Development and Training, University of Wolverhampton, UK.


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More information about The Accidental Revolution can be found online at http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/cubas.html

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Copyright

Copyright for this work is held jointly between Michael R Carter and the International Journal of Cuban Studies under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative 3.0 Licence

IJCS Volume 1 Issue 1 June 2008