Freedom Road Socialist Organization

Learning from Socialists

In 2006, my wife and I were fortunate to travel to Cuba with an international Agroecological delegation from Mexico, Venezuela, Mozambique, North Korea, Japan, Ireland and other countries, as well as the United States. In the face of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the U. S. economic blockade, the Cubans were forced to move quickly during the 1990s "special period" into agroecological (versus petrochemical)approaches to raise food to feed the people. At the time of our trip, urban agriculture-using bio-fertilizers and bio-controls-provided more than 384,000 good paying jobs and 4 million tons of vegetables each year using only 67,000 hectares of land.

In addition, Cuba has 500,000 backyard farmers, and unemployment has been reduced to 2% as a result.

They approached the government with the proposal to use the land for a garden.

There are nearly 1,000,000 hectares in Cuba in non-chemical production, using only bio-controls, so most of that is rural rather than urban. Nevertheless, that means that 6 of the 7 million total hectares in agricultural production still use petrochemical methods. Obviously there's still a long way to go, but there is much that leftists in the US can learn from Cuba's successes to date.

Foundations for the Success of the Cuban Agroecological Transition

This diagram, prepared by Peter Rossett during our trip, outlines the ingredients for success from the example of the agroecological transition in Cuba. In this article I will attempt to link their example to similar demands from movements in the US.

1. Access to land—agrarian reform

More farmers, not fewer! This is also a key demand of the family farm movements in this country. During the US Social Forum in Detroit, in a workshop organized by the National Family Farm Coalition, it was pointed out that "more farmers" would be a huge advance in two of the most important peoples' struggles in this country - jobs and climate change. Carolyn Mugar, director of Farm Aid, pointed to a brand new publication about family farmers' role in revitalizing local and regional economies. (see www.farmaid.org/es). And La Via Campesina has documented well how small farmers "cool the planet" (for more about this, see my earlier article here.)

Indeed, agrarian reform is a key demand of La Via Campesina's international movement for food sovereignty.

Land for People vs. Land for Speculation! Land Ownership! These are key demands of the Principles of Unity for the Right to the City Alliance.

2. Agroecological technology

Agroecology is more than just using bio-fertilizers and bio-controls rather than chemicals - though bio methods, including bio-energy, are of major significance in Cuba. It is also about being ecological and local: learning the natural ways, traditional ways, and re-using them. Using local seeds,, local genetic varieties, local fertilizers, and local pest controls and natural enemies to local pests. It means inter-cropping and crop rotation. Producing all your inputs and using all your wastes on your own farm. Closing the loops to create "permaculture for the people".

3. Organized People

Cuba is perhaps the most organized society on the earth today. The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) are the basic unit of this organization. They were created back in 1961 when the defense of the revolution literally meant identifying and getting rid of those people who were trying to overthrow the new revolutionary government with US support. But the Cuban communist party and government have sustained the CDRs from 1961 through the present time. They are built block-by-block, house-by-house. Organizers knock on doors, talk to the people, and ask them to join a committee. Each committee elects one or more delegates to a district, which in turn, elects delegates to the popular councils, which are the basic governmental unit in Cuba. Several popular councils (representing no more than 35,000 people, sometimes only 20,000 or so) will make up a municipality. Municipalities may in turn make up a city, as in Havana, or a province.

These councils and committees also promote interest circles, such as the Vida Sana Aero Pura circle that we visited. Interest circles are encouraged among the local citizens around all issues of importance to the Cuban government and/or the citizens.

We in the United States have such a LONG WAY TO GO in terms of organizing people to build what is necessary to have food justice, climate justice, economic justice, or any other kind of justice. Consumer capitalism mandates individualism, the nuclear family, mobility, etc. Nevertheless, this organizational component of what MUST BE built to create an agroecological revolution is clearly part of what MUST BE done for working class and oppressed people to win power in this country.

Whether your interest is jobs, police brutality, health care, or food justice, an organized people is necessary to win. It seems to me there may be similarities between the Cuban "interest circles" and the "new working class organizations" of resistance that are discussed in Freedom Road's strategy. And block units (similar to the CDR's in Cuba) I'm sure are a goal of strategic efforts to build New Majority electoral coalitions.

4. Government Support

There is no question that state support, from the top down, is also crucial to the success of the agroecological transition in Cuba. Most important were the networks of local seed, local bio-control, and local bio-fertilizer enterprises that had been encouraged, created, and supported by INIFAC and other government-university support networks. This is where Via Campesina and the small farmers, farm workers, and food justice social movements disagree with those who have said that the U.S. and Europe simply need to end their subsidies to big cotton (or other) farmers so that African farmers can compete with them on equal grounds. As Via Campesina said in a statement following the breakdown of WTO talks on agriculture in Cancun in 2003:

The reaction of some is "to abolish subsidies in agriculture all together." However, this would be another blow for peasant-based production. Public support for sustainable peasant-based agriculture, directed to those who need it most, is a key demand in the North and the South. It is also critical to stop overproduction in export countries through supply management schemes and that countries must be able to protect themselves from low-priced imports." (see Via Campesina's website for more information)

The state is one of the worst enemies of sustainable agriculture in the U.S. What will be necessary to change that completely is a revolution! The starting point to get there is for U.S. activists who are food, ecological, environmental, or agricultural conscious to organize people and make demands on the state/government. Some of the Policy Demands from the NYC Right to the City coalition platform are good examples of transitional-type demands:

 

• The NYC Council and Mayor must offer grants to help small grocers stock and maintain affordable fresh fruits and vegetables, along with low-fat milk and real fruit juices. This should be coupled with policies that ensure healthy school lunches and improve student nutrition through initiatives such as the farm-to-school program;

   

   

• The NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, along with the City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, must make community gardens permanent to ensure low-income communities access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables;

   

• The City Council must ensure that new fast-food restaurants may not be built within a tenth of a mile of schools.

   

Importance of a Vision

Towards the end of our trip to Cuba, the delegation had a party during which we went around and all made toasts. My toast was more or less as follows:

"We must bring our greetings from the U.S., 'the belly of the beast'. Among many other things, we have been impressed by the number of generals and other former military personnel who are now involved in sustainable agriculture in Cuba. Our campesinos in the U.S. have long had a slogan 'Make food, not bombs!' Now we must add a bigger challenge to them. We must turn all the U.S. generals into farmers!"

Later, Peter Rosset and General Wong, a leader in Cuba's agroecological movement, both cited the toast I had given during our delegation party about "making the US generals into farmers" during the general conference with 400-500 people present. What a challenge! As the Cuban worker said to me about the toast, "It's a good dream. And if you cannot dream something, you cannot create it." Let's create it!

Michael Spohn is a founding member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization and a long-time leader in the American Federation of Government Employees (AFL-CIO) within the U. S. Department of Agriculture. He got involved in the food justice movement in the 1980s when the Local Union in which he was elected President took up a "public service unionism" strategy that said: If we work for USDA in programs that are supposed to serve family farmers, low-income, and socially disadvantaged rural citizens (i.e., people of color), then we need to build a strong alliance with the social movements that exist among those groups. He recommends that others involved in public sector unions or in struggles over public sector services consider building similar alliances as one aspect of the overall strategy around new working class organizing and new majority coalitions.