The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology movement of ANAP in Cuba: social process methodology in the construction of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty

Abstract

Agroecology has played a key role in helping Cuba survive the crisis caused by the collapse of the socialist bloc in Europe and the tightening of the US trade embargo. Cuban peasants have been able to boost food production without scarce and expensive imported agricultural chemicals by first substituting more ecological inputs for the no longer available imports, and then by making a transition to more agroecologically integrated and diverse farming systems. This was possible not so much because appropriate alternatives were made available, but rather because of the Campesino-a-Campesino (CAC) social process methodology that the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) used to build a grassroots agroecology movement. This paper was produced in a ‘self-study’ process spearheaded by ANAP and La Via Campesina, the international agrarian movement of which ANAP is a member. In it we document and analyze the history of the Campesino-to-Campesino Agroecology Movement (MACAC), and the significantly increased contribution of peasants to national food production in Cuba that was brought about, at least in part, due to this movement. Our key findings are (i) the spread of agroecology was rapid and successful largely due to the social process methodology and social movement dynamics, (ii) farming practices evolved over time and contributed to significantly increased relative and absolute production by the peasant sector, and (iii) those practices resulted in additional benefits including resilience to climate change.

Keywords:

• agroecology
• Cuban agriculture
• social movements
• ANAP
• La Via Campesina
• Campesino-to-Campesino
• agricultural extension

Notes

¹Uncited affirmations about LVC are based on the authors' own experience working on these issues in various capacities inside the movement.

²In Cuba it is common to use ‘organic farming’ to refer to any kind of sustainable agriculture, agroecology, ecological farming, etc. But here we are referring to organic farming as it is understood in Europe and the US.

³For definitions and discussions of food sovereignty see Rosset (2006) and Martínez-Torres and Rosset (2010).

⁴Laura Enríquez (2003) has called this repeasantization, though as stated below in the text, the transition to becoming peasants has been uneven.

⁵See http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/

⁶In fact this saying is the subtitle of our book, Machín Sosa et al. (2010).

⁷UNAG was a founding member of La Via Campesina, though they have since left the movement.

⁸Based on various interviews.

⁹Contrary to common belief, ANAP is not funded by the Cuban government, but rather by a voluntary self-tax on farm sales by member cooperatives. While the Cuban state has historically provided a much greater degree of support (credit, marketing, crop insurance, extension, etc.) to the peasant sector than other Latin American governments, it is also true that long-term and larger investments were more directed to the state farm sector than to the peasant sector.

¹⁰An anonymous reviewer of this manuscript observed that, ‘A skeptic might ask if the decision to decrease reliance upon external funds while expanding the initiative is simply a way of making farmers perform more work without compensation. They might further ask whether the decision was really one made by the farmers or if it was actually implemented by a government’. On the ground in Cuba it is clear that this initiative did not come from the government, though many government agencies came to support it. One need only visit the Cuban countryside to sense the enthusiasm and pride that MACAC members feel for their movement, a movement they feel they built themselves, and which has had to overcome the skepticism of many government officials each step of the way, officials trained in the Green Revolution model of large-scale industrial farming. It is a testimony to their volunteerism and results that this skepticism is being gradually eroded.

¹¹It should be pointed out that many promoters in Mesoamerica identify themselves as part of a movement (Holt-Giménez 2006). But it is a movement that is fragmented among smaller organizations, with the exception of UNAG, which has more ‘hosted’ than ‘promoted’ CAC. These factors may at least partially explain the slower growth in Mesoamerica.

¹²On this see also Lugo Fonte (2000).

¹³Machín Sosa et al. (2010, 47–8) includes a description of the distinct functions, qualities, strengths, weaknesses and challenges of promoters, facilitators and coordinators, as elaborated by the participants (who included people with each of the above functions) in a workshop we held in Havana province.

¹⁴More recently Cuba has initiated a new phase of agrarian reform, in which former sugar cane lands are being given in usufruct to ‘new peasants’, as well as to current peasants who need additional land. By mid-2010 this had added some 75,000 new members to ANAP, and MACAC is currently offering them training in agroecology.

¹⁵An economic incentive effect has clearly been acting to help boost both peasant production and the implementation of agroecology, due to reorganization and diversification of marketing opportunities for Cuban peasants (Deere 1997, Machín Sosa et al. 2010).

¹⁶Root and tuber crops, called viandas in Cuba, are a key element in the national diet.

¹⁷Fernandes (2000) has similarly noted how successful land occupations by the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) in Brazil often lead to the reconstitution of the atomized peasant family.

¹⁸See Hoffmann and Whitehead (2006) for a discussion of Cuban exceptionalism.

¹⁹Like many other farmer organizations, ANAP has a national farmer training school. A key lesson of the ANAP experience is that the school can play an integral role in supporting MACAC. Promoters, facilitators, and coordinators all take short courses at the school to learn methods (i.e. pedagogical and organizing methods) specifically tailored to their roles. Cooperative presidents and other ANAP cadre and leaders from all levels receive courses to sensitize them to agroecology and to the CAC methodology (Machín Sosa et al. 2010).

²⁰ANAP has hosted dozens of exchanges with peasant organizations from around the world, with a particular affluence of Venezuelan organizations (Machín Sosa et al. 2010). In 2009 the International Working Group on Sustainable Peasant Agriculture of La Via Campesina met at ANAP's farmer training school, with delegates from Latin America, Asia, Africa and North America.

²¹See Borras (2010) for an example of how ‘cluttered’ the landscape can be.

²²In recent years agreements with Venezuela and China have led to renewed imports of farm chemicals. However, fluctuations in the price of petroleum have made these imports somewhat unreliable, supporting the argument by MACAC activists that it is better not to depend on such imports in any case.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter Michael Rosset

The authors would like to thank the Joint Program in Cuba of Oxfam International for financing this study, ANAP and La Via Campesina for giving us the privilege of carrying it out, and the peasants of Cuba for opening their farms and hearts to us. This paper draws extensively from our book (Machín Sosa et al. 2010) published by ANAP and La Vía Campesina in Havana, Cuba. We thank the four anonymous reviewers for the Journal of Peasant Studies for their helpful suggestions.