The Regime Gives Cuban Farmers More Leeway
Without relinquishing control of the land
Producers will finally be able to market their products “without mandatory intermediaries,” according to one of the new regulations published in the Official Gazette.
HAVANA TIMES – Amid a severe food shortage in Cuba and after decades of steady decline in agriculture because of a failed economic model, the government on Wednesday published a series of regulations in the Official Gazette granting farmers new powers, with the aim of increasing food production.
Nevertheless, the State will continue to own the land in Cuba, meaning that the main obstacle to agricultural development on the island remains in place.
One of the regulations which eliminates one of the biggest obstacles Cuban farmers have denounced for years: the imposition of a mandatory intermediary—the State—for marketing their products.
The regulation establishes that Cuban producers will finally be able to “market their products without mandatory intermediaries, while cooperatives and private companies will be able to engage directly in foreign trade and set prices according to supply and demand,” the official newspaper Granma reported.
Another new law authorizes farmers, after years of prohibition, to import supplies, technologies, and fuel, pending approval.
They will also be able to set and negotiate prices through agreements between parties, enter into partnerships with state and private entities, and receive foreign investment through joint ventures or international economic associations.
The resolution allows individuals who have the necessary conditions to fatten male cattle in the calf and yearling categories to do so without owning land, “but not before registering the animal with the corresponding Livestock Registry and applying for a health permit,” clarified Cuba’s deputy minister of agriculture, Telce Gonzalez Morera.
“There is greater flexibility for agricultural producers in the marketing of meat, while respecting the fact that the municipal allocation continues to give priority to social consumption. Health procedures are being simplified without neglecting food safety, new channels are being opened for the marketing of meat products, and the regulations are being coordinated with those governing animal health and veterinary medicine,” he said.
Regarding veterinary medicine, a law authorizes self-employed workers and private entities to provide veterinary care services and even allows for the creation of private laboratories to carry out official testing.
Veterinary care is extended to all animal species, and individuals and private legal entities are now permitted to import and export goods related to the sector.
Among the regulations published in the Gazette is the “Agricultural and Forestry Land Law,” which was approved by the National Assembly of People’s Power in July.
Gonzalez Morera recalled, the law “maintains state ownership of the land but expands the usufruct system.”
“Access is authorized for individuals and legal entities, whether state-owned, private, or mixed, allowing all economic actors to participate in this process,” the official said.
When analyzing the bill in mid-July, journalist Lucía Alfonso Mirabal warned in DIARIO DE CUBA that “what we are witnessing is the legal refinement of state control over farmers.”
“The main characteristic of the bill is not greater openness, but rather the inflexible reaffirmation of the historic principles of the Agrarian Reform of the 1960s and the socialist concept of property. The text reaffirms that the land is socialist property belonging to all the people—a euphemism for state property—and explicitly prohibits the transfer of state-owned land into the ownership of individuals or legal entities,” Alfonso Mirabal wrote.
“Thus, the regime makes clear its greatest fear regarding the countryside: the emergence of a class of truly independent agricultural landowners. The State’s absolute dominance over the principal means of agricultural production is non-negotiable for Castroism,” she warned.
“By barring private ownership for new producers, usufruct is consolidated as the only means of gaining access to land. The bill attempts to sweeten the pill by extending contracts to 25 years and allowing new economic actors to benefit from them. Nevertheless, the legal relationship continues to be marked by dependence on the administrative apparatus,” the journalist criticized.
First published in Spanish by Diario de Cuba and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.