RESEARCH WORK

Empowering and social change from participation and capacity building. Case study in three livestock production cooperatives

A. Suset¹, Hilda Machado¹, Taymer Miranda¹, Maybe Campos¹, P. Duquesne¹, Tania Sánchez¹, L. Lamela¹, A.R. Mesa¹, F. Reyes¹, F. Nodarse¹ y J.A. Sardiñas²

¹Estación Experimental de Pastos y Forrajes "Indio Hatuey"Central España Republicana, CP 44280, Matanzas, Cuba

E-mail: antonio.suset@indio.atenas.inf.cu

² Asociación Cubana de Producción Animal (ACPA), Cuba

ABSTRACT

In order to evaluate the potential of mulberry (Morus alba var. Cubana) for the supplementation of young grazing cattle and its effects on the productivity and health of the animals, this study was conducted at the EEPF «Indio Hatuey» during the rainy season, with two treatments: the experimental group received 6 kg of fresh chopped mulberry and 500 g of concentrate/animal/day (A); while in the control group supplementation was 1 kg of concentrate/animal/day and pangola grass hay ad libitum (B). The bromatological and phytochemical composition of mulberry, live weight, mean daily gain (MDG) and fecal egg count (FEC) of gastrointestinal nematodes in the animals were evaluated. Significant differences (P<0,001) were observed in the live weight between treatments (186,06 vs 169,01 kg). Likewise, a significant effect (P<0,05) of the MDG was detected, with values higher than 600 g in the supplemented animals. On the other hand, the FEC showed significant differences (P<0,01) since the second month of evaluation, with stable performance and values lower than 100 epg in the experimental group. Seven groups of secondary metabolites were found; the most representative ones were phenols, tripertene-steroids and flavonoids, which have therapeutical action on animals. The mulberry forage is concluded to show good nutritional characteristics that allow its inclusion in diets for grazing calves. In addition, good results in the live weight and mean daily gain can be obtained with supplementation.

Key words: Calf, Morus alba, supplements

INTRODUCTION

Since the first stages of civilization, the animals due to intuition and human beings due to socialization have needed their peers to face the vicissitudes imposed by the environment (Botello, 2005). Hence, cooperativism as aspect that has been associated to the needs of human beings to face and solve problems which, in general, determine significant aspects of the daily life of sectors, localities and families under less favored conditions, appears as a viable alternative to generate local collective improvements in rural realities.

Cooperativism attempts to gather the existing potentials to facilitate action aiming at a better management of economic and social development. Miranda (2006) refers that it constitutes a singular event which tries to integrate the management of local organizations and their responsibility in the improvement of the life quality of their associates and sustainable socioeconomic progress. On the other hand, «it consists in obtaining good productive indicators without degrading the environment and, essentially, in the increase of the rural inhabitants' opportunities to gain access to the products of development, based on the sustainable management of natural resources which would make them lasting in time» (Verdaguer, 2000).

Regarding the Cuban context, the specialized scientific literature does not include the creation of agricultural cooperatives from workers, which did not emerge as demand of the development of productive forces but through decrees and, to a large extent, they have been the results of contraction moments in their development (Arias and Hernández, 1998).

Under Cuban conditions, cooperativism linked to the livestock production sector and to rural areas, is essentially acknowledged. Jiménez and Almaguer (2003) state that it comprises the cooperatives of credits and services (CCS), cooperatives of agricultural production (CPA) and basic units of cooperative production (UBPC); the latter constitute the analysis unit of this work, because of the bearing they have on the Cuban agricultural structure at present due to their numerical superiority and their wide land extension; they involve a remarkable quantity of labor force and in all cases, associated localities; in addition, they have potential capacities for diversified livestock production. Hence, the objective of this work was to contribute to the socioeconomic and technical-productive transformation in three Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC) of Cienfuegos province.

Conceptual considerations

Globalization as a process has favored and privileged some sectors and spaces of social life and at the same time it has disarticulated others, which even had development perspectives. Francés and García (2002) sustain that under the shape of neoliberal globalization a superstructure is developed with the ability to act in a synchronic integration and disintegration process over the territories-nations, which impedes organization and social life management, because complex problems are approached with simplistic theories and analyses; however, the solution to the simple issues of productive reality is delayed as they are treated in a complex way.

Considering the above-explained facts, there can be no talk about the global without taking into account the local, because local conditions allow the creation of global networks. Simultaneously, local relationships exist with regards to far situations that contextualize them; the global level without the local one is a purely abstract dimension (Bonanso, 2006). In this context the local level begins to recover its integrating function among people and localities, and between them and nature. Thus, in many spaces it is materialized in the development of alternative relationship forms, recovering and creating new values, diverse life styles, new and particular production, exchange and consumption forms (Francés and García, 2002), that is, from its particularities and potentials.

The above-explained facts force to consider empowering to facilitate the understanding of the aspect that allows the process of positive impulse in the management of the development of people groups or individuals.

«Empowering is a commonly used term at present when talking about social intervention in communities and groups or collectives motivated to change. It synthesizes the complex social and human process that are given in people and communities which, exposed to a gradient of important psycho-social risk, are strongly sensibilized and predisposed, whether aware or not, to assume new behaviors (…). Being empowered is opening oneself to the perspective that adversity can victimize the individuals that suffer it or, on the contrary, lead them to face the challenges which thus become a possibility for transformation» (Castro and Llanes, 2008).

The above-mentioned authors sustain that for an empowering process to be originated, necessary conditions must occur, such as self-determination, legalization and creativeness, which can be facilitated through intervention techniques, which place people, organizations and localities with a decisive role of participation and learning of organization forms for the self-management of development.

In this sense, all social development carries with it a process of change which, in turn, implies conflicts caused by the need to readjust or rearrange the preceding balance, but social and individual development can not occur in a divorced way. «A healthy society must establish, as its ineludible objective, the joint development of all people and the entire person» (Max-Neef, 2001). In this case, development is considered as transformation towards improvement; hence that at the same time as every change in the social level, a change of mentality must occur, which is more than having disposition or will to change things.

Regarding the above-explained thesis, Zimmerman (1998) states that resistance is a natural and human phenomenon linked to the change process. There is no deep change without resistance, almost nobody likes a change without understanding its purpose and without believing it will produce profit in the form of acknowledgement, responsibility, power or better working and living conditions. However, resistance appears as a sensation perceived by the subject; change causes insecurity and control loss, and it causes fear because the future looks uncertain. It is a manifestation of the concern for not being able to control the new with the proper experience and the available action strategies.

Nisbet (1979) defined social change as a succession of differences in time in a persistent organization. In this regard, the true power of conservatism in social life is not acknowledged: the power of custom, tradition, habit and simple inertia; under difficult circumstances, such as periods of crisis, this complicates the existence and considerably limits the problem analysis capacity and the search for solutions.

The decisive factor is the adaptable nature of human behavior as it is appreciated in the culture and society. Once adaptation has occurred, as solution to some problematic aspect of the environment, strong impulses are developed to retain this adaptation way. This confirms that habits are opposed, as essential factors, to changes, and they constitute the interaction among knowledge, ability and desire, for which, in order to generate lasting and substantial changes, it is necessary to work on the three above-mentioned levels. Here lies the substantive element in the persistence of certain conventional productive practices, implemented during more than five decades in Cuba.

A key aspect to be considered in the Cuban rural and agricultural context, is the function of social participation in the reality transformation processes, because «it intends to return to the stakeholders the leading role and the word, stimulate the critical conscience, the active adaptation to reality, the capacity of being a change agent and building their knowledge about the world to transform it», according to Minujin (1999). The author also sustains that participating is not being in an activity, moving or talking, but it is basically having incidence on reality, making decisions, elaborating projects and putting them to work, as well as being an active agent in the determination of social, working, productive or cultural processes in which one is involved, the participation in the issues that are linked or have incidence on the daily life of the inhabitants and workers of a certain place. Guajardo et al. (2004) conceive participation as the concrete action of people to intervene directly in the decision-making that affect their daily lives, the lives of their families and their localities, mainly concerning work, production and their fundamental satisfactions. In this case, the individual and collective aspects inseparable from the daily reality in which the people are reproduced are implicit; it means taking part and going from a situation in which one or some decide for everybody, to another one in which everyone can express opinions and act on the issues that concern all of them. Here lies the essential aspect that requires the excessively beaten «sense of belonging», which rather than in the speech, is built in the empowering processes supported on real participation.

Another aspect to be considered, and which is highly important for understanding emerging processes, is the social capital. «In this case its novelty lies on the fact that it places emphasis on the usefulness of confidence, reciprocity and cooperation as support of the social order and development, under the assumption that by enhancing these elements it is possible to increase the participation of social shareholders in the resolution of the problems that affect them» (Miranda and Monzó, 2003).

Miranda and Monzó (2003) sustain the following arguments:

1. Confidence can be understood as an attitude that allows the voluntary transference of resource control. In this case it equally refers to social learning which is developed from positive reciprocity experiences and it is based on mutual expectations of behavior.

2. Reciprocity emerges from the need to maintain a balance between what is given and what is received. As object of analysis and in general it can be defined as a type of social obligation that emerges in the exchange between two or more individuals or groups. «This term accounts for a relational and not terminal exchange, unlike a mercantile exchange, which is terminal and not relational» (Bahamondes, 2001).

3. Cooperation can be understood as a collective action aiming at the achievement of common objectives. «Like confidence, cooperation is also subject to tests that enhance or weaken it, or it can rather emerge as a non planned consequence of the co-evolution of strategies from multiple agents» (Durston, 2001). Another way of defining cooperation corresponds to «the practical manifestation of reciprocal arrangements to carry on an action that requires the organized assistance of individuals» (Bahamondes, 2001).

In the previous assertions, «the participation, empowering and solidarity, searching for results that facilitate self-management and strengthening of rural local organizations» are acknowledged (Selener et al., 1997).

It must be considered that the proposals for transforming reality, whatever it is, should include the structural reformulation of a dense network of new local economic orders, which means «taking conscience of development at human scale aiming at the satisfaction of the human needs that demands a new way of interpreting reality which forces to see and evaluate people and their processes in a different way from the conventional one» (Max-Neef, 2001). That is, evaluating the particularities of the different human groups from the characteristics of the `ecotypes' (specific relationship systems among people and between them and the surrounding natural environment) where they take place.

The above-expressed implies the understanding, at any moment, of human needs, stated by Max-Neef (2001), such as the need of subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, recreation and creation must be attended to achieve effectiveness in the transformations that are implemented in pursuit of rural, locality or productive organization development. The development approached «has as its objective achieving the welfare, dignity and life quality of human beings, as well as higher economic and social equality, specially attending the most vulnerable people and groups and respecting cultural diversity» (Angulo, 2005).

As it can be observed, the above-referred issues facilitate the understanding of the need to promote and impel empowering, participation, cooperation and social appropriation, mainly in livestock production collective-cooperative organizations. Evidently, it requires a consistent and real development of the socialization of social property and mechanisms of direction and stimulation of the working activity. Arias and Hernández (1998) refer that in Cuba the statization of production means did not become real socialization, although it constitutes the first step towards the conquest by society of all its productive forces; in fact, it did not exceed the boundary towards socialization, which is observed in the limited achievements obtained until now by the state livestock production and UBPC organizational forms.

It is valid to state, as it is clear in the implemented legislation for the functioning of UBPCs, that this type of organization should widely develop the management autonomy for which they should also administer their resources and become self-sufficient in the productive order. In addition, «this legislation established that their state control would be exerted through the firm, aspect which limited and still limits management autonomy» (Valdés Paz, 2003), issue to be yet solved.

Case study

This work is inserted in the actions and activities foreseen in the project «Enhancement of capacities for self-management in livestock production cooperatives» implemented between the Cuban association of Animal Production (ACPA) and the Experimental Station «Indio Hatuey» in three livestock production UBPCs. In this case the selected ones were:

• UBPC Aguada, linked to the Aguada livestock production firm
• UBPC Aguadita, associated to the Rodas livestock production firm
• UBPC El Negrito, belonging to the La Sierrita livestock production firm

The modified methodology of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (UICN), evaluated by Gallo et al. (2000) was used, which evaluates the environmental and socioeconomic dimensions, and considers human welfare with the same importance as that of the ecosystem. The principles and methods of the New Paradigm Network (De Souza, 2007) were also considered, which evaluates the institutional question in a contextual way, with a world vision that acknowledges the person as center for change and proposes changing the mentality of people for them to change things.

The work was developed for two years, since February, 2007; the different stages and aspects approached during the process were the following:

Stage 1

• Arrangement with the three UBPCs and explanation of the project objectives.
• Performance of participatory workshops for the socioeconomic and environmental diagnosis using the MARPS methodology of the UICN (1997) readjusted for the context. In this case the methodology allowed group work and the elaboration of maps of the past and present, as well as the socioeconomic and environmental diagnosis in the context of the cooperatives and associated localities.

Stage 2

• Technical productive diagnosis of the units from each UBPC; in this case transepts and training were made through practices of pasture planting and animal management.
• Performance of the participatory strategic planning.
• Elaboration of reports and action plans.

Stage 3

• Implementation of the action plans.
• Follow-up and evaluation through monthly workshops; these workshops consisted in the evaluation of the actions planned for each month, successes and mistakes were analyzed and the knowledge exchange was promoted.
• Final exchange workshop.

During the work different information collection tools were used, such as: map elaboration and revision of the documents and records of the organizations.
In the three cooperatives the socioeconomic, technical-productive and environmental diagnosis was conducted; the participatory strategic projections were elaborated and the proposed actions were implemented in accordance with the problems and particular potentials of each organization.

Lessons learned in the three Cooperatives:

• Doing things in time, according to the plan.
• Implementation of training as improvement process of the productive practices.
• Transformation of reality from involvement and participation in the whole process.
• Taking the learned lessons, as social practice, to the productive context.
• Participation stimulates interest and enhances creativity.
• Correct resource utilization from transparency and agreed decision making.
• Good relations among cooperative members, propitiated by the transparency in the activities and processes with attention to gender equality.
• Link of cooperative members to the final result with the creation of cost centers organized by activities and cost-benefit relationship.
• Stimulation, materialized in incomes, products and improvement in working and living conditions.

The concerned UBPCs performed at the moment of work with the same functioning logic as the conventional model, in which according to De Souza (2007) organizations tend to change things (that is, infrastructures, departments and names, among others) to generate changes in people and organizations. In this case, the team work and the participatory management dynamics of the project (including the elaboration of the strategic participatory planning, the technical-productive diagnosis and the implementation of transformation actions, together with the exchange, feedback, monitoring and evaluation dynamics during the different stages of its execution), propitiated a change in the behavior of the cooperative members, which was manifested in the socialization of experiences and knowledge, the participation, fulfillment of the projected activities, and the assumed commitment and appropriation.

The improvement was accompanied by incentives with social and economic impacts, in accordance with the theory of social change proposed by Zimmermann (1998), which at the same time improved the daily routines of people, that is, the advance payment, working conditions, productivity, learning, interpersonal relations and commitments with the planned actions.

In each cooperative the elaboration and utilization of the strategic plans and control mechanisms to develop planning and self-management of the productive processes were achieved. The productivity and quality of the generated products increased; a significant number of women were incorporated, as active associates of the entities and associates of the ACPA, and better working and living conditions were created. On the other hand, water supply was achieved, in the areas where irrigation systems had been installed, to the cooperative members' houses. The productive, economic and financial growth of the three UBPCs also allowed a remarkable increase of family incomes through the final production-commercialization results considering the cost-benefit relationship. The above-expressed was supported by the enhancement of social capital.

The exposed results favored the viability and sustainability of the project, which is acknowledged by the cooperative members themselves and by the authorities of the province and the municipalities.

As it is observed in table 1, the indicators reached or were close to reaching the planned results; the increase of productivity per cooperative member, advanced payment and mean stimulation (remuneration received by each cooperative member in each month of the year as average) and total earning of the three cooperatives stand out. Likewise, the reduction of the cost per production peso is significant, all this as result of the productive increase and the efficiency of the production processes which corroborates, besides, the efficacy of the trainings. The increase of women's participation in the economic, productive and social life of the cooperatives must be emphasized.

It is also important to state that the actions have guaranteed sustainability, because the cooperatives have commercialization contracts for part of the productions of rabbit and pig meat and fruits, among other products in CUC (convertible currency), with commercializing firms of the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI), which creates purchase capacities in this currency, mainly to acquire the productive inputs.

CONCLUSIONS

Cooperativism is seen as a viable alternative at present, in order to solve the existing limitations in the livestock production of the Cuban context, due to its predominance in the agricultural structure, mainly because of the amount of labor force and cultivation areas it uses and the potentials for diversifying production, among other issues.

Before the disarticulating and unstructuring effects of globalization, with noxious consequences in rural zones and the associated agroproductive organizations, are alternative relation forms, different lifestyles, new and particular production, exchange and consumption forms, which can not be understood and attended without considering such processes as empowering, supported on the real participation and the utilization of the potentials of the social capital (confidence, reciprocity and cooperation) for favoring productivity, solving the problems that affect them commonly and contributing with the satisfaction of human needs.

In the case of the cooperatives with which the work was done, the participatory methodology and interactive dynamics with which the project was executed allowed substantial improvements which were manifested in the productive increases, as well as progresses in the working conditions, incomes and interpersonal relations. On the other hand, from the implementation of the Participatory Strategic Projection, a medium- and long-term transformation and development vision was generated, perceptible in the aspirations of the cooperative members.