RESEARCH WORK

Revivification of UBPCs as socialist production organization: strategy of agricultural development in Matanzas, Cuba

Hilda Machado, A. Suset, Taymer Miranda, Maybe Campos, P. Duquesne, A.R. Mesa, J. Iglesias, Yuseika Olivera y Wendy Ramírez

Estación Experimental de Pastos y Forrajes «Indio Hatuey». Central España Republicana, CP 44280, Matanzas, Cuba

Email: hilda.machado@indio.atenas.inf.cu

ABSTRACT

A work of participatory strategic planning was conducted in 20 Basic Units of Cooperative Production of food crops and livestock production from Matanzas province, using participatory methods; the aspects related to the capacity of the entity to offer welfare to the partners through income and food. The main needs of the cooperative, the income and food sources of the families that belong to them were analyzed, as well as the situation of the natural resources that are patrimony of each agricultural entity, their strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities, and the processes developed in the action of UBPCs through the productive chain. UBPCs supply only 21% of the food required by their families and 40% of the income. The lack of autonomy and productive inputs, inefficiency of supplying enterprises; problems with commercialization of products in convertible currency and deficient management policies are among the main threats perceived by participants; the dissatisfaction of the workers was the main weakness; while their human and natural resources are perceived to be the main strengths. However, the availability of goods and services of the ecosystems has been decreasing as consequence of the action of man, who has caused the decrease of soil fertility and biodiversity. This group of problems is an important cause of the low productivity observed in these units.

Key words: Cooperatives, ecosystem, planning

INTRODUCTION

The creation of the Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC) between 1993 and 1994, modified the work and income conditions of the workers of state farms towards cooperative forms; the workers received about 2 800 000 hectares of lands in free usufruct with no time limit and the other necessary conditions under favorable credit conditions, in addition to fiscal exemptions and budget subsidies when needed (Castro, 2000).

UBPCs were created as a fast response to the lack of labor and the scarcity of resources faced by the agricultural sector. Their main goals are: to increase the efficacy of their management, stimulate the presence of man in the field and encourage him to give his productive forces in order to achieve higher production volumes (Averhoff, 1998). However, the expected results have not been achieved and a high number of UBPCs are not cost-effective (Castro, 1998).

According to Act No. 142 «On Basic Units of Cooperative Production», passed by the Ministry of Agriculture (1997), the main principles of UBPCs comprise:

· The link of man to the area as a way to stimulate his interest on work and his sense of individual and collective responsibility.

· Food self-supply of the group of workers and their families with cooperate effort, as well as the progressive improvement of housing conditions and other aspects related to man's care.

· To strictly associate the workers' income to the production obtained.

· To develop largely management autonomy, administer their resources making them self-sufficient in the productive order.

On the other hand, UBPCs have natural resources, such as soil, water and agricultural and natural biodiversity, for their management, which have a determining influence on their productive capacity, depending on the degradation levels they have suffered due to the anthropic action or the natural capacity to respond to human needs.

The development of agricultural management methods that allow to harmonize agricultural production, conservation of natural resources and rural development, is an urgent need. In this sense, agroecology (discipline which objective is the knowledge of the key elements and processes that regulate the functioning of agroecosystems and establishes the scientific bases for efficacious management, in harmony with the environment) proposes the design of agricultural management models based on an approach more linked to the environment and more socially sensitive, focused not only on production, but also on the ecological stability of production systems (Sanz, 2007).

In this sense, it is not possible to separate the analysis of the productive or socioeconomic management of an entity, without taking into consideration the characteristics and situation of the ecosystem it uses for its activity.

The objective of this work was to learn some of the aspects related to the fulfillment of the main objectives of UBPCs, regarding the socioeconomic situation of partners, causes of non-fulfillment and status of agroecosystems, as important elements of productivity.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The work was developed in 20 UBPCs dedicated to food crops and livestock production of Matanzas province. The modified methodology of the UICN (1997) was used, in which the welfare of ecosystems is considered to be as important as man's welfare, and the methodology of the New Paradigm Network (De Souza Silva, 200.), where man is considered the main promoter of changes, for which «man must be changed for things to change». A three-day participatory workshop was carried out in each entity, with representatives of the partners and communities linked; in each workshop between 15 and 25 people participated.

In the workshops the following steps were taken:

1. Analysis and exchange on the concepts of sustainability, system, ecosystem and agroecosystem.

2. Estimation, by consensus of the participants, of the aspects related to the capacity of the entity to provide welfare to the partners through income or food contribution; the main needs and income sources for the cooperative families were also analyzed, as well as the key food sources.

3. Analysis of the situation of the natural resources that are patrimony of the agricultural entity. The variations occurred in the ecosystem in the last 50 years were determined by consensus among the participants; the maps made by them, the changes in the availability of goods and services of the ecosystems, as well as the availability of plants and animals during the last decades were compared.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Socioeconomic situation of producers

Table 1 shows that cooperative members need to dedicate time to use their own yards and orchards to complete family food stock, because UBPCs do not satisfy their needs, as established in their regulations. Some produce crops, but they are not enough, and contribute with part of their own productions to social consumption through Acopio (Entity in charge of gathering the agricultural production from farmers and distributing it to commerce), which limits even more the sales to their partners. This occurs also because in many cases the insufficient resources delivered depend on the social object or main activity linked to food for the population and they are not for the integral functioning of the cooperative.

Even today, the participants estimate that most of their food is from commercial entities and the yards and orchards, which indicates the importance of the increase of the cooperative contribution to family food, because this situation, in addition to decreasing the work hours of the producer in the cooperative to cultivate his own orchard, forces him to violate his working day and limits the identification with the UBPC and, thus, his sense of belonging.

This situation becomes increasingly worrisome due to the international food crisis, which has drastically increased food prices. In this sense, in 2007 cereals recorded an increase of 41%, plant oils, 60% and milk products 83%. Between March 2007 and March 2008, the sale price of wheat (raw material for bread, crackers, etc.) increased in 130% (BBC, 2008).

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has lately insisted on the fact that the world crisis caused by the high price of foodstuffs will be longer than foreseen. During the closure of the Regional Conference celebrated in Brasilia, the director of this organism, Jacques Diouf, emphasized that a clear political will is going to be required to increase agricultural production.

The results corroborate the recent analysis made at the Delegation of Agriculture of Havana province, where it was apparent that among the 101 UBPCs of that province, the number of the ones that have not fulfilled the main objectives of this year is high. Production for the self-supply of workers and their families- not only in food crops, vegetables and grains, but also in protein from animal origin-requires more dedication (Cuesta, 2008).

Regarding this, the Cuban president has made a calling to perform the necessary transformations in agriculture to achieve the food self-supply of the country (Castro, 2008).

Analysis of necessary income and family income sources

Table 2 shows an estimate of the income an average family from a cooperative would need to satisfy their basic needs. These values are conservative and refer to the income the family should have to achieve a more comfortable existence, considering the economic imperatives of the nation. This allows to calculate the income the cooperative must obtain in order to be able to provide for its associates.

Only with production increase and expense reduction can income be increased. None of the 20 UBPCs analyzed fulfills the income demands of its partners, for which cooperative members and their families must find other sources. The requirements were always over 2 000 pesos, although they were variable among the different cooperatives. In this case, the variation and diversity could have been linked to the main activity they develop, where the most favored ones, regarding the feeding of their partners, are food-crop UBPCs, although a remarkable income improvement could be observed in livestock production UBPCs. The most successful cooperatives, among the ones studied, deliver advances of about 900 pesos, which although considered acceptable by the partners, are very far yet from satisfying the families' needs.

The amount of these advances depends on land productivity and the type of link to work results. In none of the evaluated entities the link of man to the productive area and such results includes his attention towards conservation or improvement of natural resources.

Income sources in cooperative members' families

As it is impossible for them to satisfy their needs with the income perceived at the cooperative, the partners and their families look for other choices. The salary or advance, although improved, constitutes only 40% of the necessary income of the cooperative member, for which the family must still find other sources to satisfy their needs, aspect which is essential to solve in order to increase the sense of belonging to the UBPC. Table 3 shows the deterioration of the salary or advance as income source, which is not recovered yet.

It should be added that in all cases the lack of productive inputs, such as machinery, electrical irrigation system and fuel, are said to be the aspects that influence the most the work of productive entities. Also the delay in the delivery of resources causes that they are not most efficiently used. Another deficit aspect in productive entities is the lack of training and of technicians and management staff with the adequate preparation, all of which is reflected on the low productivity of work (table 4).

Aspects related to natural resources

Agriculture is a necessary and extensive form of land use, applied in all types of ecosystem. Since its beginnings, about 12 000 years ago, near 7 000 plant species have been cultivated and harvested as food for humans. Nevertheless, nowadays only around fifteen plant species and eight animal species constitute 90% of our food. Approximately one third of the whole land area of the planet is used for food production, which turns agriculture into one of the main causes of habitat transformation at global scale, together with urbanization (Rodríguez, 2005). Table 5 shows the most common components in the analyzed entities and the goods and services they contribute to the community that inhabits them and lives on their resources.

Table 6 shows that, according to the residents' perception, in the agricultural ecosystems of the analyzed entities, the availability of goods and services has been decreasing as a consequence of man's action. An important part of the autochthonous flora and fauna from those sites has been lost, as well as the water for livestock and crop irrigation; the food for humans and animals, meat, milk and wild animals decreased; the fauna refuge and natural drainage were lost; the availability of timber, wood and medicinal plants decreased, as well as soil protection, nitrogen fixation and landscape, among other natural goods that can be observed at plain sight. Ecosystems have considerably decreased their natural productivity.

In this sense, FAO has proposed the promotion of approaches that take ecosystems into consideration, aiming at the sustainable management of production systems, i.e., examining the reciprocal relationships among socioeconomic factors, biophysical factors and biodiversity, in order to solve inter-sectorial problems; these activities comprise the elaboration of case studies and production of practical instruments and methods (FAO, 2008).

Table 7 shows some of the animal and plant species that were previously abundant, but which are scarce or do not exist at present.

The loss of natural vegetation has been a consequence not only of planting other species, but of the destruction of the ecosystem balance by desiccation of humid soils and irrational soil management, which also had repercussions on the animal species. Dichrostachys cinerea is an invading plant that destroys biodiversity, at least momentarily, although it protects and restores the soil and ecosystem, which will become biodiverse after 40 or 50 years. In this sense, the effect of self-protection of soils due to the presence of D. cinerea can be evaluated as positive; otherwise they would constitute deserts, given the bad management and non utilization of some areas for producing human and animal food. Biodiversity provides the raw material, the genetic combination that produces the diverse plant and animal species on which agriculture depends, for which it is important to conserve the autochthonous species, which are also the hope in the fight against the effects of climatic change.

The Organization of United Nations (2005) published a report titled «Evaluation of Millennium Ecosystems», where it is explained how the world ecosystems have been altered during the last 50 years by human action; although this has contributed to net gains of human welfare, a high loss of biodiversity and the degradation of many services have occurred, which will continue in the next decades.

It is evident that the recovery of Cuban productive entities, which were subject for more than 50 years to the application of ecosystem destructive technologies, needs to consider not only the scarcity of inputs, but also the need to recovery degraded ecosystems and conserve the ones that still remain healthy. The low crop yields, which are manifested in the work productivity and income of cooperative members, are not only a reflection of the lack of productive inputs or sense of belonging, but also of the decreased capacity of ecosystems to respond to human needs.

The creation of an agricultural and cooperative culture devoid of the old and unsustainable input-based habits is required. A wide and integral training program must be organized for all partners, which allows the creation of a new culture of cooperative property. In addition, the independence of this type of organization must be guaranteed for its economic, financial management and access to national and international credit, these entities should be allowed to guarantee the subsistence of their partners as essential condition of their existence, at least in the next 5-10 years, which will contribute to the self-supply of the surrounding communities.

Acknowledgements

A significant group of researchers and technicians from the EEPF «Indio Hatuey» participated in this work as facilitators and reporters of the workshops carried out. The authors deeply thank all the aid provided. They are: Dr. Marta Hernández Chávez, Dr. Tania Sánchez Santana, Dr. Odalys C. Toral Pérez, DVM. Leydis Fonte Carballo, MSc. María T. Lay Ramos, DVM. Dayrom Blanco Betancourt, Eng. Doris Torriente Díaz, Dr. Saray Sánchez Cárdenas, Suylán Serrano Lazo, Julia Cáceres Amores, Anober Aguilar Hernández, Nilda Castro Alonso and Lucía M. Armas Perdomo. Special thanks to Vice-Minister Alcides López Labrada and the Vice-President of the Administration Council of the Government of Matanzas province Raúl Pagés Herrera, for the political support and the effort in the coordination of this work.