RESEARCH WORK
Innovation and technology transference at the Experimental Station "Indio Hatuey": 50 years propitiating development in the Cuban rural sector (Part I)
Taymer Miranda, Hilda Machado, J. Suárez, Tania Sánchez, L. Lamela, J. M. Iglesias, A. Suset, A. Pérez, Milagros Milera, G. J. Martín, Maybe Campo, O. López y L. Simón
Estación Experimental de Pastos y Forrajes "Indio Hatuey".
Central España Republicana, CP 44280, Matanzas, Cuba
E-mail: taymer.miranda@indio.atenas.inf.cu
Abstract
With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI) created a centralized management and technological innovation system, which generated substantial changes in the farmers' living and working conditions. However, this enhancement had structural limitations that caused unfavorable economic and environmental consequences, which determined the need for a technological change in the Cuban agriculture of the 1990's. This problem forced the knowledge development centers to search for new ways for the effective application of the innovations, an issue that was priority of the EEPF "Indio Hatuey" since its creation. The highest impact generated by the Station in terms of generalization of results was associated to the opportunities originated by the MINAGRI with the creation of a system of agricultural extension in 1976-1980. The scientific results were focused on forage conservation, as strategy to relieve the feed deficit occurred every year, during the dry season. With the economic crisis of the 90's, a reconversion process began in the dairy cattle exploitation technologies. In the mid 90's, the silvopastoral system technology emerged, gradually introduced in 16 provinces of the country, with the advisory of a multidisciplinary group in charge of monitoring and feedback between the generating center and the receptors. Nevertheless, to guarantee the sustainability of the dissemination of these systems, the availability of pasture seeds was a limiting factor. In spite of the novelty of the technologies generated by the Institution, the adoption rate was not in correspondence with the real needs and the effort made by Cuba to reverse the situation of livestock production. The Institution searched for a new way to approach technology transference, visualizing it as a component of the rural territorial development which has determined the appropriation of new concepts and social constructions. Studies were conducted in six municipalities of Matanzas province, with relevant results for the localities.
Key words: Innovation, livestock production sector, technology.
INTRODUCTION
During the 70's and 80's of the 20th century, Cuban agriculture underwent large transformations which led to fast development in the countryside through the increase of state property to 70% of the lands in the country. This determined the elimination of the private sector of economy, allowed state production in socialist enterprises and, afterwards, the creation of the cooperatives of agricultural production (CPA) and the cooperatives of credits and services (CCS) since 1977. Through a centralized management system from the Ministry of Agriculture, substantial changes were generated, rapidly improving the living and working conditions of the farmers.
This process facilitated development in the rural context, understood «as richness, evolution, progress, economic growth and even, as industrialization» (Tejera, 1996); however, this advance had the following limitations: 1) no enough bearing was assigned to the sociocultural variables involved in the development processes; 2) it assumed that it was all about promoting growth and that the distribution of resources would be almost natural; 3) it did not consider the importance of the participation of the producers and farmers; 4) it caused unfavorable consequences in the ecosystems due to the application of intensive technologies. Such disadvantages did not allow defining that enormous effort as real development, in spite of the large resources used for it.
It is estimated that the total investments in the livestock production sector in the 80's significantly increased, the input consumption per hectare grew considerably and the total expenses reached about one thousand million dollars as annual average, which represented 30% of the total value of the investments in the country (Averhoff and Figueroa, 1999; Nova, 1999).
In this sense, at the end of this decade, 40% of the inputs were imported and 52% of the ones manufactured in Cuba were produced with raw materials from external sources; likewise, the component acquired abroad for the production of fertilizers was 94%, and in the case of herbicides and concentrate feedstuffs for animal feeding, 97 and 98%, respectively.
According to Díaz (1997) and González (1999), the predominance of extensive growth, low agricultural yields and little productive efficiency (in spite of the large amount of available inputs) as well as the slowness in the application of scientific results, were only some of the fatal consequences of such model. Biodiversity loss, degeneration of the traditional productive practices, and increasing soil deterioration (Suset et al., 1999) constituted the reasons which determined the need of a technological change in the Cuban agriculture of the 90's (Martín, 2000).
This change became a need only when the drastic events in Eastern Europe took place, related to the disintegration of the USSR and the disappearance of the socialist block, with which Cuba maintained more than 85% of its commerce, causing a drastic reduction of the inputs, which were mostly imported. With these events, the invariability of the implementation of this economic development model was proven and an economic crisis period started, which was intensified in 1993 and 1994.
In this period, purchases were reduced to 40%, fuel imports to a third, fertilizers to 25%, concentrates to 30% and all the other agricultural activities were seriously limited (Funes, 1997; 2001).
Livestock production was not exempt from such a devastating situation; high mortality rate occurred, mainly of the genetically improved dairy herds, which brought about a reduction in milk and meat production, with unfavorable consequences for the population.
In this context, a series of measures were carried out for the recovery of the feeding basis of livestock, using alternative practices and applying sustainable animal production systems, which aimed mainly at the increase of production, still with few resources (Nova, 1999; Robert, 1999).
The breakdown of the paradigm based on the dependence on imports from the socialist block occurred and it became necessary to build a new technical-economic model based on endogenous development. This demanded promotion of innovation capacity and knowledge of the bases of ecologically healthy management of technologies, which would also be economically and financially attractive, socially pertinent and technically viable (Simón et al., 2005).
This problematic situation forced the social stakeholders related to rural development, especially knowledge development centers, to search for new ways for the effective application of innovations in social contexts, through adequate rural extension processes. The objective of this work is to present how the links between the productive sector and the Experimental Station «Indio Hatuey» have been developed.
The EEPF "Indio Hatuey" and its links to the productive sector
The idea of having close links between the research center and the productive sector was present from the conception of the foundation of the EEPF "Indio Hatuey". The awareness of the need to establish relations determined, since the beginning, the search for ways to achieve it. That is how consultancy emerges, which was directly related to the application of the results or knowledge and technologies, produced by the Station and other scientific centers of the country, with remarkable emphasis on livestock production development.
The highest impact generated by the Station, in terms of generalization of results, was associated to the opportunities that were originated by the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG) with the creation of an agricultural extension system in 1976-1980, composed by a network of result application commissions. The livestock production sector had, among others, the commissions of pastures and forages and of management and feeding, with the participation of researchers from Indio Hatuey.
The extension proposals were presented, in general, as projects. The commissions, once the ideas were approved, determined the enterprise and the unit where the result or achievement was to be introduced, which was mandatory for the enterprise selected by the MINAG. The research centers and enterprises were in charge of following up such introduction.
Among the positive results of the consultancy provided by the Station, in its beginnings, to the enterprises, according to the report by Blanco et al. (2007), the following stand out:
The scientific results approved for their generalization were not casual; they represented the concerns and interests of the livestock production sector at that time, mostly belonging to the state. In that stage, the attention was focused on forage conservation, as strategy to relieve the serious feed deficit occurred every year, during the dry season.
In the 80's, a new stage emerged in the technology diffusion and adoption process, called technology transference or extension, which was more related to the interest and formation of the client, its interaction with the provider, as well as the capacity, experience and knowledge of the human transference team. The price and proper characteristics of the technology, the autonomy degree of the clients in decision-making and the resources they had, also influenced, among other aspects (Lamela et al., 2002; Suárez et al., 2002; Suárez and Pérez, 2003). In this stage the need of viable and sustainable technologies, with little dependency on external inputs and capable of maintaining moderate production levels, was evident.
Changes in the world order force technological changes in the Cuban livestock production development
During the economic crisis of the 90's in the 20th century, there was a decrease in imports, exports and the Cuban internal gross product, which intensified the crisis in agriculture and livestock production. In this context, and to attempt overcoming such discouraging situation, a reconversion process began of the diary cattle exploitation technologies.
At that moment, it was known that when using natural or improved pastures without fertilization, milk production could be 6 kg/cow/day when the stocking rate was not higher than one cow per hectare. However, the stocking rates exceeded two animals per hectare and led to a decrease in milk yield, low reproduction rate and high mortality rates.
Under those conditions, Guevara (1999) reported a milk production between 3-4 kg/cow/day at commercial scale, in grasslands and with (or without) the use of supplementation (1 kg per day of locally-made concentrate per cow). The inclusion of herbaceous legumes in grazing areas, in protein banks as well as associated to the grasses, showed the possibility of obtaining milk and beef productions results higher than the ones found with grasses, but the stocking rate in the system should not be higher than two animals per hectare; nevertheless, in most studies the legume population was observed to decrease with the exploitation of the pastureland (Iglesias et al., 1997; Iglesias, 2003).
Protein banks, of herbaceous legumes as well as forage ligneous plants, were introduced and evaluated since the 80's. Grasses represented 70-80% of the grazing area and the rest was dedicated to legumes (20-30%); initially fertilizer was used in the grasses and the results in milk production were approximately 9-10 kg/cow/day (Milera et al., 1994; Iglesias, 1996).
After 1990, the limitations to acquire chemical fertilizers prevented the fertilization of pasturelands, which caused a decrease in dry matter yields, a reduction of feed quality and lower milk yield (5-8 kg/cow/day). In addition, there was a negative effect on reproduction, because empty cows increased, due to the low crude protein content of the pastures (Soler et al., 1996).
In this context, the studies conducted in the late 80's (Hernández et al., 1986; Hernández et al., 1987) proved that the presence of trees and shrubs in the whole grazing area contributed to increase the productive indicators, with regards to the use of the protein bank; its potential values were between 450 and 600 g/animal/day for rearing replacement heifers and cattle fattening, respectively, and 8-10 L/cow/day in milk production systems (Hernández et al., 1992; Hernández et al., 1996).
Thus, in the mid 90's the silvopastoral system technology emerged as a technological choice which involved the presence of trees and shrubs, in interaction with the traditional components (pasture and animal) throughout the grazing area. This set was subject to an integrated management system, with a trend to increase the long-term productivity and net benefit of the system (Ruiz and Febles, 2006).
Dissemination and adoption of the silvopastoral system technology
In 1995, the silvopastoral system technology transference to the productive sector began, which in its beginnings conceived a producer motivation strategy, through the practical demonstration of the research results validated in production; this was followed by a process of training and dissemination of the different steps of the technological process. With this purpose, visits were made to experimental and validation areas and short training courses were organized, showing, theoretically and practically, the possibilities of the technology, the forms and strategies which should be followed and the role played by direct producers in its implementation and consolidation.
Afterwards, an action plan was elaborated per provinces and livestock production enterprises (table 1), together with the researchers who had experience in the technology; the production units were selected and prepared to begin the extension work.
In order to guarantee the correct extension of the technology a multidisciplinary group was created for the consultancy and supervision of the work, in charge of monitoring the activity and also achieving a feedback between the generating research center the EEPF "Indio Hatuey"- and the productive sector.
As the technologies and their different variants were introduced, visits to the units under promotion were organized to achieve exchange and links between producers, which main results allowed attaining higher motivation in other producers and the exchange of initiatives and experiences. The managerial organizations at province, entrepreneurial and cooperative level played an active and decisive role in this process.
The limitations of material and human resources were an obstacle to widen the extension work and the generalization of the technology in the most distant places of the country through the means used, for which the technical-professional personnel began to be trained by means of the Specialization on Silvopastoral Systems. This postgraduate studies modality provided the possibility of achieving basic capacity-building in theoretical-practical terms and was taught in the provinces Matanzas, Camagüey, Villa Clara, Granma and Holguín.
The technology was introduced in many enterprises, among them: Genetic Livestock Enterprise "Este", Livestock Enterprise "Sureste", "El Cangre", Genetic Enterprise "Nazareno", 2Valle del Perú", "Guaicanamar", "Santa Cruz", "Babiney", "Ariguanabo", "Bacuranao", "Niña Bonita", "Los Naranjos" and the Livestock Production Enterprise of the West, all from the former Havana province. In Matanzas it was introduced and applied at the Genetic Enterprise of Matanzas, the dairy unit "El Rancho" from the Citrus Fruit Enterprise "Victoria de Girón" in the Jagüey Grande municipality, at the Livestock Production Enterprise "Martí" and several farms from the Livestock Production Enterprise of the Ministry of Interior (MININT). In the eastern region, it was applied by the Genetic Enterprise "Comandante Manuel Fajardo" from the Granma province and by the Enterprise "Hermanos Sartorio" in Holguín. In Pinar del Río, it was introduced at the Genetic Enterprise "Camilo Cienfuegos".
As a result of the introduction of the technology and the innovation processes made by entrepreneurs and farmers involved in the adoption process, substantial improvements were achieved in milk and beef production, as well as in the reproduction and rearing processes in growing animals from different genotypes and breeds (Iglesias and Hernández, 2005; Mejías, 2008; Sánchez et al., 2008; Lamela et al., 2009; Lamela et al., 2010). Nevertheless, to guarantee the sustainability of the dissemination of these systems, pasture seed availability continued to be a limiting factor.
Seed production technologies
During more than 25 years of research, the EEPF «Indio Hatuey» developed a set of technologies for seed production, cleaning and conservation (Blanco et al., 2007), which were validated in 20 seed farms following a methodology (fig. 1) which achieves a wider participation of all the stakeholders, from scientific and management leaders to technicians and workers.
Their adequate application allowed obtaining a cost-effective product, which production costs were lower than the existing ones in the international market. Likewise, the establishment of pasturelands from botanical seed is significantly more economical than the use of agamic seed, and at the same time high quality seed yields can be achieved. In fact, one hectare of botanical seed allows planting between 15 and 80 ha of pasturelands, according to the species, and with an additional forage contribution (70-100 t/ha/year); while using agamic seed it is possible to establish only between 7 and 10 ha (Suárez and Pérez, 2003).
The constitution of seed farms was a process which was extended since the 80's. In this, an important role was played by the courses and training organized by the EEPF "Indio Hatuey" and the Cuban Association of Animal Production, supported by foreign organizations, with the participation of technicians and engineers from the 14 provinces of the country and from 20 seed-producing farms (Suárez and Pérez, 2003).
In the mid 90's, due to the crisis, the production was considerably depressed, leaving only two farms functioning stably in the Matanzas and Cienfuegos provinces, which demanded a new strategy for the recovery of pasture seed production and the change of the pastureland structure in the country (Pérez, 2009).
Since 2001, at the EEPF "Indio Hatuey" a new strategic approach was designed, aiming at recovering seed production (Suárez and Pérez, 2003), which considered the following principles: 1) Focusing on the seed farm; 2) Using methods and tools of the Technology and Innovation Management; 3) Incentivating the producers' participation; 4) Stressing training and the producer-technology provider interaction;
5) Being supported by the cooperation between different scientific and entrepreneurial institutions; 6) Promoting sustainable production and its diversification; and 7) Achieving the insertion in the National Program of Pasture Seed Production.
This new strategic approach had as organizational and economic support two transference projects funded by the Direction of Science and Technology of the MINAGRI. In them, the farms under exploitation in many provinces of the country participated, among which the following received priority: 1) "La Rioja", belonging to the Livestock Production Enterprise Martí, in Matanzas; and 2) "La Maravilla", from the Livestock Production Enterprise Aguada in the Cienfuegos province. As part of the extension of this work, 37 farms were recovered or created (Pérez, 2009):
Along with the recovery of the seed farms, work was done in the diversification of their productive activities, integrating tuber and vegetable production, as well as meat production from several animal species.
Thus, for example, in the seed farm "La Rioja" from the Livestock Production Enterprise Martí, 3,6 t of seed, more than 8 t of beef (with grazing in the harvested seed areas), 350 kg of rabbit meat, more than 24 t of tubers and vegetables, more than 150 t of hay and approximately 2 000 t of forage, were obtained in one economic cycle, which made it possible for the farm to have a favorable cost/peso ratio of 60 cents for every peso invested (Pérez, 2009).
However, this extension modality still continued to be "pushed by science", in spite of the interest shown by producers in the process, which was stressed by the instability of technicians and qualified workers of the enterprises and the little preparation of these enterprises to undertake the technological innovation and reconversion required by the new scenario of the 90's.
The turn in the conventional system of technological transference
In spite of the novelty of the technologies generated by the Institution, the adoption rate was not in correspondence with the real needs and the effort made by Cuba to revert the situation of livestock production. The extension systems gave priority to the state sector and technology, without considering that the private sector had a critical role in milk and meat production in the country. Although there was a movement in Cuba which promoted low-input agriculture, in harmony not only with the need to protect the environment, but also with the socioeconomic situation of the country, the high-input culture still prevailed in the agricultural process, which produced inertia in the producers, who expected the return of those technologies.
The movement of ecological agriculture was welcomed by part of the small farmers and in urban agriculture, but not by those that had the highest percentage of arable land, such as the CPAs, the basic units of cooperative production (UBPCs) and state farms. Likewise, the predominance of the high-input culture was observed in the techno-bureaucracy, which was shown in the lack of contextualization of the technical assistance offered (Machado, 2009).
For all those reasons, the Station adopted two premises for agricultural extension and rural development: 1) the need to change values, concepts, approaches, models and paradigms, as guiding principles to shape the way of thinking and acting of the social, economic, political and institutional stakeholders which made contributions to the development process and the conservation of the natural patrimony; and 2) the need to give priority to the relative change in people in order that they would change things.
Thus, the Institution searched for a new way to approach technology transference, visualizing it as a component of territorial rural development, which determined the appropriation of new concepts and social constructions. The concept of sustainable development was considered, according to which development is conceived as a harmonic process, where resource exploitation, investment direction, guidance of technological change and institutional transformations should be in agreement with the needs of the present and future generations. Thus, development is presented as a process which requires global economic and social, as well as environmental and human, progress (Pichs, 2002), so that three objectives are sought: economic growth, equity (social, economic and environmental) and environmental sustainability (Dourojeanni, 2000).
From the point of view of agricultural sciences, which desired rural development, this paradigm required the modification of the reductionist approach, which affected them since their emergence in the 19th century, by adopting the methods used by the physical and biological sciences at that time (Snow, cited by Núñez Jover, 2001).
A system approach should be applied in research, for which it was necessary to take into consideration that a livestock production enterprise is a system not only with technological, but also socioeconomic and environmental dimensions (Machado et al., 2007).
This justified the fact that the EEPF «Indio Hatuey» developed a group of transformations with regards to the object of its research, incorporating to technology creation the study of the processes through which sustainable agricultural development should be attained. For that purpose it focused on the evaluation of sustainability in rural areas through indicators, which allowed recommending and making decisions from a more contextualized position. On the other hand, it studied the role of the managerial staff in the productive process and the community-productive organization-local government relations, from the social performance of the subjects involved in the development process.
In studies conducted in the Martí municipality, it was proven that one of the causes of the slow recovery of the indicators of living conditions was social behavior, in the communities as well as the productive organizations, depending on the external context. The latter did not consider, within their relevant environment, the livestock training and research centers as opportunities to accompany them in their development management, which accounted for their little innovative and learning capacity and their low productive results. In addition, it could be observed that the lack of perception of the responsibility of the productive organization with regards to the community that supported it, hindered its development possibilities, as the organization made the decisions on the use of the land and natural resources which were part of the community patrimony, decisions that responded to a sector (production) and not to territory development approach (Machado et al., 2009).
When studying other six municipalities in Matanzas province, similar results were obtained (Machado et al., 2007). Regarding the social aspects, it was observed that in the family economy, such variables as income, consumption and solvency and saving by the population were in unsustainable or almost unsustainable levels; except in one of the studied municipalities, where the economy was represented by a large socialist enterprise, with high entrepreneurial efficiency and high salaries, and in which diverse programs of the Revolution were conducted, reactivating the economy. The indicators related to education, health and social assistance showed high sustainability values; however, other showed the impoverishment of the territorial economy, with a negative repercussion on the living conditions and low sustainability levels.
The economic aspects, measured by such indicators as productivity, cost-effectiveness and mercantile production per inhabitant, were unsustainable, with the exception of the above-mentioned municipality. The lack of financial resources, equipment and stimulus to work, together with the lack of capacity to manage scarce resources, were considered the main causes of inefficiency in the enterprises, which indicated the urgent need to carry out a learning process allowing the local factors a change in the management culture of resources which were not always available, as in the previous years to the economic crisis of the 90's. The widening of the legal economic framework in which the municipalities operated was also necessary.
This study, which comprised a period of 10 years and is still ongoing, allowed asserting that work productivity is one of the factors that must be urgently recovered, because it is directly reflected on the family and state economy, through the salaries and mercantile production, total and per inhabitant, making the economy of the municipalities unsustainable. It was proven that any development program in the municipalities should start, necessarily, by a substantial improvement of the economic activity and productivity.
With regards to the development of local economy, the main strength observed was the availability of land and people who wanted to work on it. The studied environmental aspects showed, in general, a decrease of soil productivity, which was reflected on the low yield of crops per hectare, caused not only by the lack of resources, but also by the erosion they had undergone due to monocrop and the inadequate technologies used and which were still maintained. It is valid to emphasize that all the municipalities had environmental education programs, but the same results were not achieved in all of them.
As an attempt to relieve this situation, important experiences were carried out with the participation of the municipal social stakeholders, particularly in the Martí municipality, through training and participatory planning programs, involving all the sectors of the society.
In order to fulfill the Livestock Production Development Program of the Martí municipality, which mission is to contribute to technological and social innovation of the livestock production sector in the Martí municipality and to the increase of food safety and sovereignty of the population through economically, socially and environmentally sustainable processes, it was necessary to elaborate a project portfolio which would allow managing the necessary funds for the transformation. Until 2011, 13 projects were elaborated in the territory, among them eight aimed at food production, three at infrastructure improvement, one aiming at capacity building in the technical and professional personnel, and one with the objective of promoting artisanal production. Until now three proposals have been funded and one of them shows encouraging results by increasing beef production in 85 400 kg, in the period from January to November, 2010, as compared to the same period in the previous year.
The work methodology was based on the principles of participation, adult teaching and empowering for decision-making, using the methods of popular education and the performance of workshops and collective activities; while knowledge management was proposed mainly in the sites where this knowledge was to be applied. In addition, the approaches of ecological and interactive thinking were promoted, as well as the participation of women in decision-making, and this is expected to be reflected on increase of the capacity of users and local groups to solve their own problems, as expression of the autonomy and sustainability that should characterize development processes.
