Changing Cuban agriculture could “contribute greatly to reducing poverty and improving the lives of people in Cuba.”[1] Here are some of such changes, proposed by Osmel Ramirez Alvarez, a Cuban journalist:
- “Allow the sale and purchase of land, as well as the transfer of usufructs, without mediation or impositions by the State.
- Eliminate the forced mediation of current cooperatives, which are like quasi-state agricultural companies, in addition to state agricultural and insurance companies, in agricultural management.
- Allow free association of farmers in true cooperatives, if they want it and it suits them.
- Eliminate the imposition of the corporate purpose of the land given in usufruct [the right to use the property of another], which is generally free, except if it is granted as part of a local or national development program.
- Expand the limit of private or usufruct possession, or both added together, to a higher limit.
- Eliminate the marketing monopoly that Acopio has and make it another marketing company that competes with the private sector on equal terms.
- Allow MSMEs [micro, small and medium enterprises] to produce and market agricultural inputs.
- Stimulate the promotion of MSMEs that provide services to agricultural production.
- Allow the private import of all types of agricultural machinery and also encourage it from the State, free of taxes and with low interest credits for its purchase.
- Maintain the current state agricultural credit funds, but make them more dynamic and effective: divide them into microcredits with minimal rigor and larger loans, with more rigor, but without the current dysfunctionality.
- Allow Cubans abroad to be partners in agricultural ventures or associated with agriculture, to safely and legally invest their capital and transfer their experiences, as well as to promote exports.
- Eliminate activities prohibited to the private sector related to agriculture.
- Do not set prices: let the market lower them only to functional equilibrium levels.
- [Allow] state agricultural companies in general [to] compete with private ones on equal terms [with] those that function efficiently survive and those that do not, disappear or are absorbed by more effective productive forms: private sector, cooperatives, self-management of their workers, which proceed and work.”
These changes, within five years at the latest, would result in Cuba “producing most of its food,” lowering Cuba’s agricultural costs, reducing “dependence on imports” and “greatly alleviate the food crisis suffered by the Cuban people, which borders on malnutrition.” In addition, “such an opening to economic freedom . . . would unblock the entire economy in the medium term due to the effect of its example, which would be contagious. Most likely, this would become an unavoidable portal towards the change that Cuba needs.”
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[1] Alvarez, Liberating agriculture could be a first ‘experimental’ step towards solving the crisis in Cuba, Diario de Cuba Feb. 27, 2024).