ANAP was formed in 1961 through the incorporation of various farmers’ and ranchers’ organizations and more than 100,000 small producers who gained title to their land through agrarian reform. That defining act of the Cuban Revolution was a result of the armed insurrection and mass popular uprising that toppled the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and put in place a workers and farmers government.

ANAP organizes farmers who operate in two kinds of voluntary cooperatives. Credit and Service Cooperatives are associations of farmers who maintain their individual farms but pool efforts to organize supplies and sell their produce. Agricultural Production Cooperatives are made up of farmers who combine their land and machinery and farm collectively. ANAP also organizes independent farmers. Small farmers in Cuba possess about 20 percent of the arable land and account for about one-third of the total agricultural production.  
 
Workers and farmers alliance
The Rancho Boyeros Fairgrounds was full for this May 17 commemoration on a sunny Thursday morning. Banners proclaimed support for Cuba’s socialist revolution and the farmers’ confidence in ongoing efforts to strengthen their alliance with the working class, the motor force of the revolution and the basis for its survival in the face of Washington’s unrelenting drive against it.

One banner read: "Forty years with the socialist revolution!" Another: "The farmers will continue to fight!" and "More united than ever: workers and farmers!" Yet another: "Our patriotic duty: produce for the people with unity, dignity, and patriotism--we shall win!"

The featured speaker was Orlando Lugo Fonte, the president of ANAP. He reviewed gains that have come with the revolution, including winning Cuba’s independence, ending exploitation of working people, and solving, through the major agrarian reforms, "one of the main points of the program of Moncada." He was referring to Cuban president Fidel Castro’s "History Will Absolve Me" courtroom speech in 1953 in his own defense against charges arising from the attack he led on the Moncada garrison in Santiago de Cuba. In the speech, which was widely distributed and became a basic programmatic statement of the July 26 Movement, Castro explained the revolutionary laws that would have been proclaimed had the attack been successful. The Agrarian Reform Law of May 17, 1959, implemented this program. A second wave of the deep-going agrarian reform, which set a maximum limit on holdings of 167 acres, was enacted into law in 1963.

Lugo Fonte enumerated the social and economic gains made by farmers during 42 years of revolution--noting "the high political culture of Cuba’s farmers." He pointed out, "Sure markets and fair prices dignify the lives of farmers."

Among the other leaders of the Cuban Revolution present were José Ramón Machado Ventura, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party; Melba Hernández, participant in the 1953 assault on the Moncada garrison; and Ulises Rosales del Toro, the head of the Ministry of Sugar.

Juan José Sarachu, president of Centro Cooperativista Uruguayo (Uruguayan Cooperative Farmers Center), gave greetings on behalf of farmers in his country.

Students from agriculture schools made up a spirited section of the audience. Following the speeches, they and the farmers and workers present cheered on their favorite contestants in various rodeo competitions, and enjoyed performances of traditional country music.

A plaque was unveiled at the entrance to the fairgrounds commemorating the founding of ANAP at that site on May 17, 1961.

Raúl Castro, minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and first vice president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers, presided over a ceremony in which the national leadership of ANAP gathered on the evening of this year’s Farmers Day to honor about a dozen exemplary farmers. This event capped several days of meetings and celebrations marking ANAP’s 40th anniversary.

On May 16, the Nordic Friendship Agricultural Production Cooperative, named in tribute to collaboration between working people in Cuba and several Nordic countries, hosted a farmers dinner. The event included international guests from Mexico, Uruguay, and Canada. In addition, several U.S. participants in the Fourth International Meeting on Organic Agriculture attended, including Randy Jasper, a Wisconsin dairy farmer who was present at the ANAP congress in May 2000 and Carolyn Lane, a member of Food First--the Institute for Food and Development Policy-.

The host farmers explained their cooperative is made up of 239 farmers, 55 of them women, and covers nearly 1,400 acres. Established 20 years ago, this cooperative raises a wide range of vegetables and fruit under contract to the state, explained cooperativist Onel Tamayo Pupo.

"All are equal here," Tamayo said, explaining how any surplus after their costs of production are covered is divided up among the coop members. They are now averaging 2,000 pesos per month for each member after all expenses are paid, an income well above average in Cuba.  
 
‘Socialism is the solution’
"Socialism is the solution to the problems of mankind," Tamayo said. He cited Cuba’s 42 years of revolution, and noted that the revolution had prevailed in spite of all the "difficulties and limited resources," especially in the last decade. He was referring to what Cubans call the Special Period of extreme shortages of food, fuel, energy, and spare parts that resulted from the collapse of trade and aid following the shattering of the Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the tightening of the U.S. economic embargo.

"But we have still been able to do this," he said, pointing to the surrounding fields lush with spring crops. He noted that Cuba has had to develop tourism as a part of what has been "necessary to solve our economic problems." Tamayo said that 1994 was a low point, for the Cuban economy, "but now we are making some steps forward, including exporting medicines for those with AIDS and meningitis."

Tamayo, who is the secretary of the some two dozen members of the Communist Party at this cooperative, said that a dozen of the young members of the cooperative belong to the Union of Young Communists, and that more than 40 serve in the militia.

Maria del Carmen Barroso, director of International Relations for ANAP, introduced international guests. The elected head of the cooperative made a brief welcoming presentation, and a party that included informal discussion, food and refreshments, music, and dancing continued until after midnight.

Several hundred participants gathered May 17–19 at the Havana Libre hotel for the Fourth International Meeting on Organic Agriculture sponsored by the Cuban Association of Agricultural and Forestry Technicians (ACTAF). Many were agronomists and academics, and some were farmers. Participants came from Cuba, Latin America, Europe, North America, and Asia.

Many of the presentations at the conference centered on how Cuban farmers, supported by the country’s revolutionary leadership, responded in the early 1990s to a sharp drop in the availability of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, as well as fuel and parts needed to keep machinery running. Workers and farmers turned decisively to the use of substitutes for fertilizers and pesticides. For example, they began using bagasso, a by-product of sugar production, as fertilizer.

The nationwide effort included the development of the "Farmer-to-Farmer" program by ANAP in half of Cuba’s 14 provinces to date, in which farmers are organized to visit other farmers in order to share their methods of producing crops and animal husbandry. These visits supplement the work of university-trained agronomists and veterinarians. Some of these farmers participated in the organic farming conference.

A number of participants arrived several days early for pre-conference activities that included visits to Cuban farms and agriculture-related institutions, including Havana-area vegetable, fruit, and herb farms and gardens, and a large farmers market.

The group toured three large urban gardens organized as Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC), whose self-employed producer members are affiliated with the Cuban trade union federation. UBPC members grow beets, lettuce, radishes, green onions, and cucumbers in the gardens, a portion of which were on sale to residents in the area from nearby kiosks.

Laritza, 32, a former communications engineer who has worked at the state-owned High Yield Organoponic garden for two years, told visitors that she had never studied agriculture, but chose to work there because it was close to where she lives and where her young child is cared for by a baby-sitter. She explained that the work at the garden is shared by 14 members who work six days a week from 6:00 in the morning to 6:00 in the evening with a two-hour lunch break and two 15–20-minute breaks each morning and afternoon. Members each get two weekends off per month. Laritza said that 50 percent of the farm’s proceeds after all expenses are paid goes to the state, and the rest is divided among the members. They receive 225 pesos per month as a minimum, and average 634 pesos a month in bonuses, adding up to an income well above average in Cuba.

At the UBPC Vivero Organoponico Alamar, the director explained that as in other large urban gardens they began using substitutes for chemical pesticides and fertilizers by necessity during the Special Period, but now it is by choice. The UBPC was formed for the most part on unused land. Its 18 members work from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with a one-hour lunch and two breaks. Six retired workers work part-time, receiving income that supplements their social security benefits.

Joel Britton is a meat packer and a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union in Chicago.
 
 
Related article:
Forum in Iowa hears report from dairy farmer on visit to Cuba  
 
 
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