Sustainable Agriculture in Cuba: Interview with Margarita Fernandez, PhD (Part One)

The Caribbean Agroecology Institute (CAI) was founded in 2004, then known as the Vermont Institute on Cuba, by Marisha Kazeniac and Thelma Esnard, two visionary women, one Vermonter and one Cuban, who felt passionate about the power of people-to-people exchanges to bring two countries together, despite political differences. In 2014, the Institute initiated a strategic planning process with key partners in Cuba and moved towards a more intentional focus on environmental and sustainability issues, with sustainable agriculture being a priority. Our current mission is to catalyze knowledge creation and exchange, build capacity, and support transitions to climate-resilient agroecological systems that provide sustainable livelihoods based on justice and equity in Cuba, the Caribbean, and the region.

Since 2015 we have worked closely with partners in Cuba including the Fundacion Antonio Nunez Jimenez, the Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños (ANAP), the Estación Experimental de Pastos y Forrajes Indio Hatuey, and others to bring more than 200 people to build learning alliances and regional exchanges between mostly farmers but also academics and NGOs who are leaders in agroecology, food sovereignty and climate resilience. These exchanges have included workshops, conferences, and farmer-to-farmer exchanges where we share principles, practices, research, and innovations in building more just and resilient communities and food systems.

As part of these exchanges, in 2015 the Cuba-US Agroecology Network (CUSAN) was formed and has played an important role in building bridges between farmers, academics, institutions, and movements in our countries who are dedicated to building more ecologically resilient, socially just and economically fair farming and food systems through agroecology. CUSAN does this by raising awareness about Cuba’s agroecology advances and challenges, facilitating partnerships, and building capacity amongst stakeholders through participation in exchanges, courses, conferences, workshops, and collaborative research. CUSAN also works to amplify Cuban voices internationally and to channel resources and opportunities to our counterparts on the island. Since 2016, CAI has been a member of the coordinating committee for the Research Initiative for the Sustainable Development of Cuba (RISDoC). See our latest report here and our facebook page here.

Much of the research we do is aimed at raising awareness about the successes and challenges in Cuba’s agrifood system. Mirroring the polarized views of Cuba’s political economy as a whole, its agrifood system tends to be understood either as an organic, food-sovereign utopia or as a backward, underdeveloped sector desperately requiring modernization and revitalization through foreign investment. The reality lies somewhere in between and we work with Cuban specialists to provide nuanced analysis of the changing realities on the ground and the many islands of hope. One such project was a peer-reviewed special issue published in English and Spanish with accompanying short videos, you can find here.

We are excited to be launching a new documentary produced in Cuba titled Our Agroecology, Our Future, which will first be premiered in the US, Puerto Rico, and Cuba this fall before a virtual launch in December 2024. The documentary explores through the voices of 3 Cuban farming families and several specialists, the successes and challenges of the agroecology movement. Check the trailer.

2. Cuba is often cited as a unique case study for agricultural sustainability due to its advancements in urban farming, agroecology, and ecosystem management, particularly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Can you elaborate on the principles and practices that define Cuban agriculture in this regard? 

Yes, Cuba’s agroecology or sustainable agriculture movement was born out of necessity after the fall of the Socialist Bloc caused food, fuel, and material shortages. Essential to the emergence of this movement is that it is built upon the knowledge of Cuban traditional farmers and systems-thinking transdisciplinary researchers who were already practicing, researching, and advocating for more sustainable approaches to agriculture for decades, coupled with support from international groups pushing for this change globally. What the Special Period did was open the political and economic space that allowed this type of agriculture to take root across the island.

The initiation of the transformation of Cuba’s agrifood system from one that was highly industrialized, highly fuel dependent, capital intensive rooted in monoculture commodity crops within a highly centrally planned system towards a more decentralized, diversified, integrated system has been a process that ebbs and flows depending on changes to policies and the economic situation. Government and non-government institutes charged with education, training, research, and extension began to adopt more bottom-up, participatory, popular education, and transdisciplinary approaches that facilitated co-innovations and helped this knowledge-intensive type of agriculture to spread.

The National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) Farmer to Farmer Movement, and its representation and impact at the cooperative, municipal, provincial, and national levels have been integral to Cuba’s agroecology scaling success. More than half of Cuba’s farmers (200,000 farming families) have been trained in agroecology. The Urban, Suburban, and Family Agriculture Program, initiated in Cuba during the early days of its 1990s economic crisis, has played an essential role in helping diversify the Cuban diet by increasing access to and availability of fresh fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants in a country where 80% of the population is urban. With strong government support at local, provincial, and national levels, urban and periurban farms have spread across the entire country and represent 14% of the agricultural land.

Over the past 30 years, several progressive agrarian reforms have been implemented aimed at decentralizing land management from large state farms to smaller non-state cooperative farms. As a result, agricultural land management has transitioned from being 80% state-managed in the early 1990s to more than 70% under cooperatives and family farms today. This shift has brought higher levels of agricultural and food diversity, productivity, efficiency, and embeddedness in local food systems.

The on-farm practices implemented across farm systems in Cuba today demonstrate the integrated systems that enable broad and successful scaling: knowledge and evidence-based biological products for pest management and maintenance of plant and soil health. In summary, some of the key drivers of this transformation, which is still in process, include an economic crisis that opened political space for organic and agroecological farmers and researchers to gain power; several progressive land reforms that strengthened small farmers and the cooperative sector; decentralization of food systems planning and distribution to the municipal level; an exemplary national urban agriculture program; a highly successful farmer-to-farmer training program; and several supportive government policies.

What is fascinating and so important about the Cuban experience in agroecology is its holistic approach, it has embodied some of the key social, ecological, and economic principles and practices of agroecology, which is now an approach accepted in global governing bodies as one of the most effective to address the problems of hunger, poverty, and inequality while curbing biodiversity loss and providing more resilience to the climate crisis.

Cuba’s agrifood system is by no means dominated by sustainable agroecology systems. It is a mixture of large- and small-scale farms with varying degrees of fertilizer, pesticide, and other input use, which often ebbs and flows in a cycle with the economic health of the country.  Cuban researchers, professors, agronomists, and farmers alike are split in their views on the agrifood systems with the most promise: some fall in the conventional agriculture camp (industrial, monoculture, commodity systems), while many others advocate for the government to fully support a transition to sustainable agroecology systems.

3. Despite Cuba’s status as a global leader in sustainability and agroecology, the island imports 70-80 percent of its food and is currently experiencing immense food shortages and increasing food prices. Why do you believe the island is struggling to meet its domestic demand for food? Can you provide insight into the current food crisis in Cuba and its main causes?

The short answer is that there is not just one reason, it’s the result of structural challenges domestically, severe limitations internationally (i.e. the US blockade), and environmental impacts, including the climate crisis.

Of course, we cannot underestimate the impact that the US sanctions have on the economy overall and the food and agriculture system in particular. The current food crisis is the result of the greater economic crisis that the country has been facing for years. Those who study Cuba know the current crisis is the result of a multitude of compounding factors and events including a tightening of the embargo under the Trump administration, which involved adding Cuba to the State Sponsors of Terrorism List and further restricting remittances, travel, and trade; a severe drop in foreign currency earnings due to COVID related tourism closures, which have been slow to recover; the monetary unification process initiated in January 2021, which has spurred triple-digit inflation and to this day severely limits the purchasing power for food of the majority of Cubans;  a lightning strike to Cuba’s main fuel storage facilities in August 2022 resulting in the loss of millions of dollars worth of fuel, impacts from several hurricanes, including Ian, that resulted in the loss of crops, among other challenges.

Though Cuba can purchase agricultural products from the US since the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TSRA) was implemented in 2000, there are restrictions, including the requirement that food be purchased only with cash, a limitation given the current economic crisis. Cuba has prioritized import substitution through different policies but has not been able to improve food access from domestic production. Many people ask, how can Cuba be such a leader in agroecology and sustainable agriculture but still face chronic food shortages? Part of the answer is that whether a food system is rooted in an agroecological model or an industrial model, all agricultural and food systems need resources and an enabling environment, both are barriers in Cuba today.

There is a long list of challenges in domestic production including a lack of access to credits and investment for small infrastructural improvements such as greenhouses, netting, tools, solar panels, digging equipment, and biodigesters; lack of people willing to work on farms; scarcity of fuel to run machinery and transport goods; the lack of markets to purchase basic inputs; the lack of diverse markets to sell food produced; the high rate of food waste due to inefficient distribution systems and lack of adequate storage and processing facilities; a complicated licensing system for production and marketing; and a generally precarious economy. Cuba’s agrifood system also faces serious environmental challenges including erosion, salinization, invasive species, and climate change impacts including severe drought and increasingly severe tropical storms and hurricanes.

On the challenge of food waste, a report from Veterinarians Without Borders from 2015 found that close to 40% of food produced in Cuba is lost either on-farm or along the distribution system. There are several reasons for this including lack of labor to harvest, lack of fuel to pick up and take to market, and lack of refrigeration and processing facilities to extend the shelf life and add value, among others.

Attempts at delineating an accurate picture of the Cuban food system require navigating complex and sometimes contradictory sets of data, as well as the contentious political narratives that frame discussions about agricultural development, and Cuba, in general (Mesa-Lago, 1998; Álvarez, 2004; Wright, 2009). Please look at our article written with Cubancuban coauthors for a deeper analysis about imports and food security. One key piece of information that does not get captured in official data is the significant amounts of food produced for local informal markets and home consumption.

Regardless of the actual numbers, the reality is that the majority of the Cuban population struggles to put enough food in the diversity and nutritional quality that they desire and need. Recent reforms for new economic actors and allowances of non-state actors to import foodstuffs have increased the availability and diversity of offerings, but at very high prices in comparison to the average wage for a Cuban. This is resulting in deepening inequality. The urgency of the current food crisis demands quicker, deeper transformations.

4. Given your expertise and experience working in Cuba, what changes do you believe Cuba could implement to address its food crisis? 

Just as the causes of the food crisis are complex, so are the many different strategies that could help address the food crisis. There is no silver bullet solution, and there are diverse opinions about how best to address the many structural and systemic issues. I will do my best to answer this question in such a short period of time, recognizing that much will be left out. I also want to recognize my position as an academic and practitioner who has worked in the field of sustainable food and agriculture development globally for the past 30 years, with most of those years in Cuba, but who is not a farmer or consumer, or policy maker from Cuba.

I want to highlight the fact that there is so much unleashed potential in Cuba and that many of the answers to how to address the food crisis lie within its borders and are comprised of the building blocks described above to accelerate a food systems transformation rooted in agroecological principles, practices, policies, and values. Some of the key ingredients necessary for agroecology to expand to a national scale exist in Cuba: access to land (albeit with its unique limitations); pedagogical approaches in line with agroecological values; academic programs for agroecology; a horizontal process of learning and knowledge creation like farmer to farmer; successful examples of innovative diversified agroecological farms; an unparalleled urban agriculture system; a strong cooperative sector for social organization; and policies that begin to value agroecology.

However, the sector as a whole significantly lacks resources. New investments, incentives, and subsidies are severely needed and could come in the form of redirecting subsidies from other sectors like tourism.

There are so many islands of hope in Cuba, of exemplary farmers who are producing significant amounts of diverse, nutritious foods using agroecological methods, but farmers need support in many areas including access to inputs. Within Cuba, there is excellent research and robust evidence on the effectiveness of natural biological pest control agents and fertilizers that do not have the investments and resources to be scaled, to be available to farmers. Likewise, excellent research on agrosilvopastoral systems from institutes such as Indio Hatuey and the Instituto de Ciencia Animal have demonstrated strategies to produce milk and meat using diversified pasture and forage species grown on the island and not having to depend so much on feed imports. There is a successful national project integrating energy and food sovereignty on farms. A Cuban researcher and farmer found that with the model that exists in Cuba today of integrated, diverse agroecological farms, 8 people could be fed a diverse, nutritious, and culturally appropriate diet meeting caloric and protein needs with just one hectare.

There is a lot of hope in the National Plan for Food Sovereignty and Nutritional Education (known as Plan SAN), approved in 2020, and its accompanying Food Sovereignty Law which was approved in 2022. But change is not coming fast enough. A key part of the Plan SAN is to decentralize food systems planning and governance to the municipal level in order to strengthen local and regional food systems and economies using participatory and democratic local governance systems. There is also great opportunity in the sector of new economic actors with the categories of Local Development Projects and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. There is much movement with the food and agriculture sector and these new economic actors. But a common complaint is the need to “destrabar” or unlock the molasses bureaucratic processes as well as to update and create financial mechanisms that incentivize and facilitate the efficient functioning of these projects. The recent electronification of the monetary system has stifled advancement and is pushing some MYPYMEs out of business.