Food Security in Cuba and the Cuban Grupo de Agricultura Orgnica Initiative - Essay Example

Food Security in Cuba and the Cuban Grupo de Agricultura Orgnica (GAO) Initiative: a Critical Appraisal INTRODUCTION This paper will critically analyse the actions of Cuba's Grupo de Agricultura Organica (GAO), an association which has been working since 1993 to reduce food insecurity in Cuba, a country where access to food has become more erratic since the demise of communism in the Eastern Bloc. The GAO has worked together with international non-government organizations such as Oxfam and Food First. In 1999, it received the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the alternative Nobel Prize. Despite this and several other initiatives, Cubans have lived through food insecurity for over fourty years, and is likely to remain in this situation. This paper will review the food security situation in the country and the GAO's efforts to address it. The evolution of Cuban agriculture, as well as the historical and geopolitical frameworks pertaining to it, will also be reviewed. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND From colonization to the Cuban Revolution The Spanish arrived in Cuba in 1511 and ruled the island for more than 300 years thereafter. In 1898, the United States conquered the island in its second war with Spain. Cuba became independent in 1902, and started a democratic system where corruption and U.S. involvement in internal affairs were frequent. Discontent with this regime, together with Cuba's high income disparities and large mass of poor peasants (Alvarez, FE479 and FE480, 2004), led to the Cuban Revolution of 1959, where Fidel Castro and his followers overturned the dictatorial rule of General Fulgencio Batista. Under U.S. pressure, in particular the embargo enacted in 1960, Castro aligned Cuba politically and militarily with the Socialist bloc. A communist regime was installed, with one-party rule by the Partido Comunista de Cuba (Cuban Communist Party). Cuba benefited from favourable trade agreements with the COMECOM. These treaties allowed it to trade oil for sugar in advantageous terms. According to Alvarez (FE481, 2004), Cuba even sold some of these oil imports to obtain Western currency, and the subvention reached the equivalent of five billion dollars per year. These revenues allowed Cuba to invest in universal healthcare and education, achieving much better social indicators (e.g. low maternal and child mortality, near-universal literacy, high life expectancy etc) than other countries in Central America and the Caribbean, and sometimes approaching those of developed countries (for the data, see CIA World Factbook, 2005). Changes in agriculture and food production In agriculture, large farms and sugarcane plantations belonging to U.S. companies or to wealthy Cubans were expropriated and turned into People's farms or into cooperatives. The first agrarian reform initiatives followed the principle that "the land should belong to those who work on it". Sharecropping was forbidden and the land was distributed among the peasants. Subsequent laws made private farms even smaller and further concentrated land in the hands of the state. By 1963, some 70% the land belonged to the government. The Cuban authorities believed that concentrating larger properties in the hands of the State would make farming more efficient because of scale economics. (For the chronology of reforms and distribution of land, see Alvarez, 2004 - FE480 and FE481). Introduction of food rationing Cuban agriculture, especially its sugarcane plantations, followed the Soviet model. Production was intensive, heavily mechanized and export-oriented. Use of tractors, chemical fertilizers and pesticides was much higher than in most of Latin America, and often as high as in the United States (Sinclair 2001). Despite its intensive agricultural production, food has been rationed in Cuba since the beginning of the Cuban revolution. Some reasons were the export-oriented nature of its agriculture, the U.S. embargo, which forced Cuba to import food from half a world away, thereby making these imports more expensive, and the extra income that became available to Cubans after electricity and water began to be subsidized. The net effects were rising food prices and shortages. Rationing of some foodstuffs began in 1961, and the current rationing system appeared in March 1962 (Alvarez, 2004 FE482). Situation since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc Cuban agriculture started to show signs of declining output in the 80's, particularly in the state-run farms. Despite high investments in fertilizers, pesticides and mechanization, more and more of the state-run enterprises began operating at a loss (Alvarez, 2004 FE485). Some explanations were inefficiencies in production and distribution, distorted pricing mechanisms (e.g. pay not proportional to output, appropriations by the state through "voluntary donations", mandatory selling of quotas to the state procurement agency etc) (Alvarez, 2004 FE481) and environmental degradation (e.g. compacting of the soil by heavy agricultural machinery, erosion, salinity due to excessive irrigation and water contamination) (Alvarez, 2004, FE484 and FE489). Barter and on-farm consumption of foodstuffs became more common, and a black market for foodstuffs began to proliferate (Alvarez, 2004 FE485). Cuba introduced free farmers markets (Mercado libre campesino, or MLC) in the 80's to try to address the situation (Alvarez, 2004, F485). However, the Cuban government backtracked in the mid-80's and tried a central planning approach with the Food Plan (Plano alimentario). This plan consisted in mobilizing workers and land for food production, in an effort directed by the state. However, events in Eastern Europe forced them to reevaluate this initiative. The fall of communism and the demise of the USSR had a severe effect on Cuba's trade, as these countries were responsible for over 80% of Cuba's foreign commerce.(Alvarez and Messina, 1996) The effect on Cuba's already beleaguered agriculture was immediate: the country became unable to import tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, animal feed and oil to sustain its agricultural sector. Production contracted by 10.3% in 1992, by 22.7% in 1993 and by another 4.9% in 1994, when it reached 55% of its 1990 level. Much of the production was spoiled because there were no resources to distribute, store or refrigerate it (Sinclair, 2001). In an attempt to force the Cuban regime's downfall, the United States significantly tightened restrictions against the island. In 1992, the Cuban Democracy Act forbade ships docking in Cuban ports from entering U.S. ports for 180 days and sales to Cuba by U.S.-owned foreign subsidiaries. The blockade's net effect was raising Cuba's shipping costs by an average of 43%. In 1996, came the Helms-Burton law, which imposed broad restrictions on third world companies trading with Cuba, especially as related to unresolved U.S. property claims (Sinclair, 2001 and Alvarez, 2004 FE483). The sanctions imposed by these laws were particularly hard-hitting to an export- and trade-oriented economy. The socioeconomic impact, including the death toll, attributable to the U.S. embargo is still a matter of discussion (Sinclair 2001). This debate is made more complex by the difficulty in assessing the diverse and overlapping effects of the U.S. trade embargo, the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the Cuban economy's inherent inefficiencies, the unreliability of data obtained from the island's censored press and ideological differences (Alvarez, 2004 F485 and Lamb, 2005). In 1993, the Cuban government declared a periodo especial (especial period of transition) and enacted some market-oriented reforms. Possession of foreign currency was decriminalized and remittances from abroad, which many Cubans receive from relatives in the United States, were legalized. An "unofficial" exchange market appeared, and there was some decentralization of economic management and foreign investors were courted (Alvarez and Messina, 1996). However, Cuba's economy remains highly centralized: the state still directs the allocation of finance, prices, the labour market and foreign investment. The only forms of private and capital ownership available to ordinary Cuban citizens are farming and self-employment (Alvarez and Messina, 1996). More recently, after a relative improvement in the economy, in particular rising tourism revenues, some of these reforms were rolled back (The Economist, 2002). The food situation Data about nutrition in Cuba is sketchy. A particularly significant omission is the government's refusal, since the late 90s, to supply data to the UN's Farming and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This finding is worrisome because, according to Alvarez (FE483, 2004), the Cuban government's data were often worse than the FAO's in the period where both sets were available. Reports of food shortages in Cuba arise in the press from time to time. According to several reports - see (San Martin, 2001) and (Alvarez, 2004 FE483) -, Cubans often have difficulty in finding and buying food, in a pattern reminiscent of that seen in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the communist era. Ingestion of proteins and fats has been below recommended levels for several years, particularly in the island's drought-prone eastern provinces (Alvarez, 2004 FE483). Malnutrition seems to be more prevalent in the eastern provinces, where droughts are common and tobacco is widely planted as a cash crop. Low ingestion of calories, proteins and especially fats have been documented, as well as a high incidence of underweight pregnant mothers, insufficient weight gain during pregnancy, low birth weight babies and micronutrient deficiencies in schoolchildren (World Food Programme, 2001). Also according to the World Food Programme, the prevalence of iron-deficiency anaemia in the region's schoolchildren reached 40%. A particularly vulnerable group Cuba is primary schoolchildren, who lose their right to an allowance of milk and cereals when they reach the age of seven years. One well-documented episode showing continued food insecurity in Cuba was the epidemic of neuropathy (Ordunez-Garcia et al, 1997): between 1991 and 1994, 50.000 people throughout the country developed optic and peripheral neuropathy due to the association between a lack of vitamin B and an unidentified external toxin. It's interesting to note that a similar syndrome was described during the United States' blockade of the island during the Spanish-American war. Sporadic outbreaks of this disease - called Cuban epidemic neuropathy - continue to occur, although widespread vitamin supplementation has led to a lowering of its incidence. Another menace to food security in Cuba is the Caribbean hurricanes. These storms often hit Cuba, and disrupt an already fragile and inefficient food production and distribution system. After a hurricane, Cubans usually have to spend long hours in queues to buy food. The U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) documented several hurricane passages in the island, with varying degrees of damage (Rappaport, 2005). It should be noted that adverse climactic conditions have often been proposed as explanations for failed agricultural experiments, such as the Sandinista initiative in Nicaragua (Alvarez, 2004 FE490). In 2002, after hurricane Isidore hit the island, the U.S. authorized the first commercial food shipments since the embargo. Cuban food imports from the U.S. have risen steadily since then, and Cuba is poised to become one of the twenty most important agricultural trade markets of the United States. Actions aimed at reducing food shortages Several approaches to tackling food shortages and high prices have been tried. There have been initiatives by organizations in Cuba, the Cuban government, several NGOs and the UN,-particularly through the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). (Sinclair, 2003) Cuba's agriculture underwent several changes (Sinclair 2001 and Alvarez 2004, FE486). Some approaches were mobilizing idle land (e.g. gardens, parks, vacant lots and patios besides people's houses), leasing of land belonging to state farms to cooperatives (called Basic Units of Cooperative Production, or UBPCs) and urban "gardeners", primarily for vegetable and fruit production, higher incentives to workers such as making pay proportional to output, in-kind incentives such as clothes, bicycles and access to recreation facilities, paying farmers partly in U.S. dollars, allowing them to sell some of their produce in free markets (outside the ration system channel), tax incentives and offering higher prices for the production of scarcer goods. The lack of imports, especially oil, led Cubans to implement biological alternatives to substitute chemical fertilizers and pesticides, such as biological pesticides (e.g. microorganisms capable of killing pests), organic fertilizers such as manure processed by earthworms (vermicompost) and animal traction instead of motor vehicles. To offset the lack of hard currency, Cuba has also been planting cash crops such as sugar and tobacco. The income from these crops allows Cuba to import oil, animal feed and foodstuffs not yet produced in the island. Some remarkable successes have been achieved: according to the government's numbers, calorie and protein ingestion have risen by 40-50% in relation to their lowest levels in 1993. Despite these measures, shortages still occur, and food prices remain high. According to one estimate, a Cuban family of four spends about 70% of its income supplementing their food rations. Several forms of food insecurity still plague Cuban citizens. The Institute of Physical Planning of the United Nations Food Program (World Food Programme, 2001) documented a high incidence of low birth weight babies, insufficient weight gain by pregnant mothers and a high prevalence of iron-deficiency anaemia among schoolchildren in the eastern provinces. Other indicators of malnutrition are a high percentage of carbohydrates in the diet and consumption of proteins, fats and vegetables below recommended levels. A group at higher risk in this region is primary schoolchildren, who lose the right to a government allowance of milk and cereals when they turn seven. Food security in Cuba The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines food security as: (1) production of adequate food supplies; (2) a stable flow of these supplies; and (3) physical and economic access to these supplies. For an adult, minimum ingestion levels compatible with a healthy diet are 2.400 calories and 72 grams of protein per day (Alvarez, 2004 FE483). Pregnant mothers and schoolchildren need different minimum levels. The assessment of a population's food security must evaluate if ingestion meets these levels, as well as the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies (e.g. iron-deficiency anaemia, peripheral neuropathy or xerophtalmia). Between 1990 and 1993, while Cuban agricultural output plummeted, average ingestion levels dropped to 1863 calories, 46 grams of protein and 26 grams of fat. It's estimated that the average Cuban lost about twenty pounds in this period (Sinclair, 2001). Some reports from this period mention people consuming non-nutritious, ersatz foods (San Martin, 2004). This phenomenon is common in starving populations, such as in present-day North Korea (Demick, 2005). The Grupo de Agricultura Organica (GAO) In 1993, the Asociacin Cubana de Agricultura Orgnica (ACAO) was formed. Later it became known as the Grupo de Agricultura Orgnica (GAO). Its objective was to address Cuba's food shortages by disseminating biological technologies for fertilization and pest control, as well as sustainable farming practices. In 1999, the GAO received the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. Since 1995, the non-governmental organization Oxfam has been working alongside the GAO in order to improve the food situation in the country. GAO has received funding and assistance from non-govenmental such as Oxfam and Food First (Oxfam, 1999). The GAO's goals are disseminating biological technology and sustainable farming practices. One specific initiative, co-sponsored by Oxfam, consisted of providing irrigation systems for three gardens in Havana, training on topics such as cultivation, insect management, permaculture and organic composting. It also strived to empower the community so that it could get access to basic needs such as garbage collection. (Ungemach, 2005) At bottom, the NGO intended to empower, improve and influence these communities in a fundamental way. The three gardens have made the people tending them self-sufficient for food and even afforded them a surplus to sell in Cuba's independent markets (Ungemach, 2005 and Oxfam, 1999). This approach is compatible with Cuba's lack of hard currency and the immediacy of its food needs. Two vulnerabilities in this approach are the country's unstable climate - in Havana, hurricanes could damage the infrastructure and even the gardens themselves. Another uncertainty is whether this approach is also feasible for the farther flung provinces in the island, which are poorer and sometimes drought-prone. Perhaps a more troublesome restriction is Cuba's political milieu. The Cuban government has severely restricted the economic opportunities of its citizens, particularly after improvements in the country's economic situation (e.g. rising tourism revenues), and could do so again. The project's beneficiaries might conceivably have their right to sell their produce restricted, be forced to do "voluntary" donations to other Cuban institutions or even have the gardens taken away from them. This intervention only addresses the distribution problem in a very limited fashion: the people directly involved in the project have better access to at least some foodstuffs, but the other potential beneficiaries of the surpluses, especially in the poorer east, still have to cope with Cuba's complex, warped and inefficient distribution system (Alvarez 2004, FE484) Attempts to influence the project's Cuban participants into becoming a more assertive community are doubtlessly well-meaning. However, one can only guess the risk of a backlash by the Cuban state. According to the Human Rights Watch, Cuba has a spotty human rights record, and cracks down on dissidents and independent journalists from time to time (The Economist, 2001). It seems reasonable to assume that the project's Cuban participants are most vulnerable to retaliation should their assertiveness disturb the powers that be. The programme's high profile in the international scene could make such an event less likely, but not altogether impossible. Another deterrent to such action by the government is the relation between food insecurity and civil unrest (Alvarez and Messina, 1996). Several other interventions aimed at improving food security are in progress in Cuba. Some have long-term goals, while others aim to mitigate acute shortages. The latter interventions are most necessary in the country's eastern provinces (World Food Programme, 2001). CONCLUSION Food insecurity, both chronic and acute, remains a grave concern in Cuba. This problem has been present for over fourty years. Its root cause is a fundamentally flawed economic system, where production is inefficient and distribution is unnecessarily complex and wasteful. The chronic shortages are periodically exacerbated by hurricanes, droughts, external and internal political factors. The relative liberalization of markets has introduced difficulties in economic access to food: Cubans spend much of their income trying to supplement the food available to them through the rationing system (the average Cuban monthly salary is about US$ 10). The complexity of the system, which includes official, independent and illegal pathways, as well as three different currencies, also contributes to the problem. At 2.600 calories and 68 grams of protein per day, the nutrition of Cuban citizens remains suboptimal, albeit an improvement over the crisis's worst years in the 90's. Deficits tend to be worse in the drought-prone eastern provinces. The overall deficit in calorie and protein ingestion is less striking than in other countries with the same per capita income. Cuba also coped better with the acute crisis after 1990 than other developing countries faced with food shortages (e.g. Indonesia in 1998 and Ecuador in 2000) (Sinclair, 2001). However, Cubans have lived under varying degrees of food insecurity for fourty years, despite the well-meaning and often ingenious initiatives by the Cuban people, international NGOs and the UN. REFERENCES 1. Sinclair M, Thompson M. Cuba: Going Against the Grain. Oxfam America. June 2001. Available at http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/publications/research_reports/pdfs/cuba/foodcrisis.pdf 2. San Martin, Nancy. Food Shortages in Cuba Raising a yellow Flag. Havana Journal, February 16, 2004. http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A1409_0_4_0_M/. Accessed July 12, 2005. 3. Ordunez-Garcia PO, Nieto FJ, Espinosa-Brito AD, Caballero B. Cuban epidemic neuropathy, 1991 to 1994: history repeats itself a century after the "amblyopia of the blockade". Am J Public Health. 1997 Dec; 87(12):2053-4. 4. Lamb, J. Food, poverty and ecology: Cuba & Venezuela lead the way. Green Left Weekly, February 2, 2005. 5. Alvarez, Jose. The Issue of Food Security in Cuba. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FE483. Accessed July 13, 2005 6. Alvarez, Jose. ACOPIO: Cuba's State Procurement and Distribution Agency. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FE484. Accessed July 13, 2005. 7. Alvarez, Jose. Overview of Cuba's food rationing system. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FE482. Accessed July 13, 2005. 8. Alvarez, Jose. Environmental Deterioration and Conservation in Cuban Agriculture. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FE489. Accessed July 14, 2005. 9. Alvarez, Jose. Cuba's Basic Units of Cooperative Production. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FE487. Accessed July 14, 2005 10. Ungemach J. Havana's Green Revelation. http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/press_releases/archive2001/art560.html. Accessed July 13, 2005. 11. Rappaport, Edward N. and Jose Fernandez Partagas. n.d. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-Present. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov. Accessed July 13,2005. 12. Cuba's Repressive Machinery - Human Rights Forty Years after the Revolution. Human Rights Watch. June, 1999. http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/cuba/. Accessed July 14,2005; 13. Van Crowder, L. Learning for the future: Human resource development to reduce poverty and achieve food security. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, 1998. 14. Alvarez, Jose. Messina Jr., William A. Cuba's New Agricultural Cooperatives and Markets: Antecedents, Organization, Early Performance and Prospects. Available at http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/ca/cuba/asce/cuba6/28alvmess.fm.pdf 15. Demick B. Glimpses of a Hermit Nation. Los Angeles Times July 5, 2005 16. World Food Programme Report- Cuba. http://www.wfp.org/country_brief/indexcountry.aspcountry=192. Accessed July 14, 2005. 17. United Nations World Food Programme. Projects for Executive Board Approval. Rome, 13-16 February 2001. Available at http://www.wfp.org/operations/current_operations/project_docs/100320.pdf 18. Repression in Castro's Cuba. The Economist. April 10, 2001. 19. A crackdown on Cuban entrepreneurs. The Economist. October 14, 2004. 20. Fertilizer use by crop in Cuba. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Rome, 2003. 21. CIA - The World Factbook. Cuba. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/cu.html. Accessed July 17, 2005. 22. World Food Programme. Executive Board. First Regular Session. Projects for Executive Board Approval. Agenda Item 9. Rome, 2001. 23. Sinclair M. NGOs in Cuba: Principles for Cooperation. IdeasAtOxfam, 2003. 24. Oxfam America Funded Programs Win Organic Farming Awards. Oxfam, 9 December, 1999. 25. Right Livelihood Award, 1999. http://www.rightlivelihood.org/recip/gao.htm. Accessed on 17 July 2005. Read More