To do, to know, and to be. A firsthand account of Cuban agroecology

ABSTRACT

This is the story of Genaro Rafael Gonzalez Baltrón, ‘El Cojo’ (The Gimp), an agroecological Cuban peasant whose life course reflects the changes that took place in rural areas as a result of the Revolution, the Special Period and the (re)emergence of the agroecological peasant model of production. This story condenses and intertwines many of the elements that shaped the Cuban ‘Peasant-to-Peasant Agroecological Movement’ (MACAC) one of the most important and successful agroecological movements in the world. This life story is accompanied by a series of video documentaries that portray how agroecology is practiced and lived in the Escambray hills.

KEYWORDS:

• Cuba
• agroecology
• peasant-to-peasant
• life story
• ANAP

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the compañeros and compañeras of the ANAP, the Cuban guajiros and guajiras and in particular to El Cojo and my cuban family from whom I learned so much. I would also like to thank Constanza Cuñado Palma, Ana Torres Bordón and Nils McCune who helped me with the English translation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

2 Guajiro is the popular name in Cuba for the peasantry or people from the countryside.

3 This life history mainly reflects the broad ‘guajiro’ sector of traditional peasant roots whose agroecological transformation is deep and structural. This deep peasant agroecology (Val and Rosset 2022) coexists in turn, mainly in the western provinces near Havana city, with a pragmatic surface agroecology of substitution with bioinputs, but still under the logic of conventional agriculture (Nelson et al. 2008).

4 In Latin America and mainly in the Caribbean region, the conuco refers to the peasant diverse plot, with multiple types of crops and manual labor. The conuco production is usually destined for the self-supply of the peasant family unit. The word comes from the crop areas of the Taino people, original inhabitants of the island before the European arrival in America.

5 In 2016, Yasiel, El Cojo’s "right-hand" and natural heir to the farm, died in a domestic accident with a mare. Faced with this tragedy, the family received numerous expressions of solidarity from the local, national and international community, showing the enormous affection and respect they had sowed through the years. It is precisely this emotional support coupled with their unwavering commitment to healthy production for social purposes (currently for children in a kindergarten and a school) that is helping to alleviate, in part, such a terrible ordeal.

6 The ‘interest circles’ are spaces for training and sharing ideas organized around a specific topic of interest shared by all participants. Many training groups emerge as an extra activity in primary and secondary educational institutions, but they are also present in other spaces such as work centers, youth groups and universities (Val 2012; Val and Rosset 2020).

7 Since the 1980s, some resolutions had already been issued to hand over land in usufruct, but it was after the mid-1990s when this regime was extended and consolidated, incorporating many families into peasant production (Nova González 2006; Vázquez, Marzin, and González 2017).

8 Credit and Service Cooperatives (CCS) are associative organizations which retain an individual form of ownership of land and other productive assets. CCS management provides technical, credit and service assistance to its members. Agricultural Production Cooperatives (CPA) are voluntary associations of peasants that unite their land and productive assets to form a socialist cooperative enterprise, with common assets and where work is organized collectively. The Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC) emerged in the early 1990s when the management of large state farms was decentralized, dividing them into smaller units that came to be managed by agricultural workers (Pérez Rojas et al. 2000; Pérez Rojas and Echeverría, 2002; Nova González 2006). For a critical review of differences in access to resources and state support according to types of cooperatives and location, see Álvarez (2004).

9 The ANAP has developed an organizational structure to promote and strengthen agroecology based on three key actors, each with different and complementary functions and characteristics: coordinators, facilitators and agroecological promoters. Explained briefly, coordinators are ANAP cadres in charge of coordination and logistics at the municipal, provincial and national levels. Facilitators are, in general, professionals who provide technical-productive and methodological support to farmers and belong to a cooperative or the ANAP structure. Promoters are the farmers themselves who, from their experience, promote among their peers the agroecological practices they carry out in their farms. They are selected on the basis of the success of their practices, their capacity for experimentation and innovation, as well as their vocation in the transmission of knowledge. Promoters are the protagonists and driving force of the MACAC (Machín et al., 2010; Rosset et al. 2011).

10 The MACAC carries out a periodic diagnosis of the general state of the farms, their progress and capabilities for agroecological production, as well as their main limitations and obstacles. This process results in the classification of farms in three categories: (1) ‘farm starting on the agroecological path’; (2) ‘farm in the process of agroecological transformation’; and (3) ‘agroecological farms’. For a farm to be considered category 3, it must have high agroecological awareness, conceptual mastery of sustainability, food sovereignty and security with a gender perspective, adequate and sufficient production for self-consumption and for the local market, low external dependence for production, a high degree of diversification and integration (soils, animals, forestry, energy, seeds, etc.), participation in MACAC workshops and activities, ensure a decent quality of life for the family unit (equity in terms of gender, health, education, information, etc.), social commitment, as well as the conservation and practice of peasant cultural traditions (Machín et al., 2010; Rosset et al. 2011; Val 2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Valentín Val

Valentín Val is a Visiting Researcher in the Agriculture, Society and Environment Department and a member of the 'Massification of Agroecology Research Group' at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) in Chiapas, Mexico.