No Rush… and No Results

No Rush… and No Results

Posted on March 19, 2014



In 1953, in his self defense statement [as he appeared at his trial for

the Moncada Barracks attack] History will absolve me, Fidel Castro

addressed some key issues pending in our country: land reform for

instance. He announced on that opportunity, as a priority in his

program, giving productive land to those in possession of five or less

acres; a nationalistic and democratic project that had its first episode

in October, 1958, when, in the middle of the guerrilla war a bill of law

was issued from La Sierra Maestra. Once he took power, actual laws were

passed–on May 1959 and October 1963–in which property titles were issued

to 100 thousand farmers, but 70% of productive land remained in

government hands.



The new monopoly of the land and the elimination of the institutions of

the civil society related to the agricultural (farming) activity

generated a progressive decrease of the agricultural efficiency, while

about 40% of the productive land of the country became idle; a

regression that was continued until Cuba lost the subsidies from the

former Soviet Union. Since then, the government had spent millions of

dollars to buy food supplies that otherwise could had been produced locally.



With such an obvious deficiency of the agricultural production, just

five months after taking over the presidency of the State council and of

the Cabinet, General Raúl Castro, conscious of the deplorable condition

of economy, expressed emphatically: We have to focus on the land! We

have to get it to produce! And he added, that sooner than later laws and

regulations will be passed to (once again) lease idle lands to farmers

on the condition they make them productive as soon as possible.



One week after his speech, the Official Gazette of Cuba published the

Decree Law 259 on that regard. This measure, could not solve such a

serious problem on its own, might have been valid if this law had been

conceived as the first step in a long way to go, for which a strong

political will is need to face the historical problem of private

property in Cuba, worsened during the Revolutionary government which

promoted large state farms (collectivism).



For its content, the Decree Law 259 of July, 2008 dictated from the

totalitarian optics, evaded the root of the problem. This same law was

just meant to lease small pieces of land of 30 – 100 acres infected with

the marabu weed, and accompanied by multiple prohibitions such as: no

building of houses, warehouses or infrastructure and no hiring of

employees.The absurdity was that the Decree-Law, issued to attack an

inefficiency whose primary cause if the inability of the State to make

the land produce, is limited to offering parcels in usufruct (a kind of

leasing arrangement), that it enjoying the fruits of the work of others,

while the inefficient State reserves the right to keep the property. The

results obtained in these conditions aren't what was hoped for.



However, even though the above mentioned Decree-Law lacked the power to

increase agricultural production, the law itself was an implicit

recognition of the need for a change. Its main fault consisted of

ignoring the possession of the property in hands of the producers and

keeping the economic decisions subordinated to politics. Given its

unsatisfactory results and the zigzagging process without the political

will required, in December, 2012, Decree-Law 259 was repealed and

replaced with the Decree-Law 300.



The new regulation made some advances such as: allowed the construction

of housings, stores and other facilities; also allowed farmers to hire

permanent or temp workers; and let farmers lease up to 5 acres, though

limited to those that already had leased contracts and were associated

to official entities: State farm, and State Cooperative Farms.



Decree-Law 300 brought the same fault of the previous one, the State

kept the monopoly of land and private producers subordinated to the

State. In its article 11 it states that the lessees can join as workers

State Farms as legal entities, or as member of a cooperative farm, for

which "the lessee yields the right of the land and other infrastructure

to the entity to which he joins, such entity decides whether he

continues working this land or not."



In addition, the Decree-Law 300 preserved other limitations such as

inputs and services not tied to the mentioned entities, with clear

disadvantages for individuals regarding the term of the contract. Such

limitation revealed once again there was not a strong political will to

bring agricultural production to a profitable level and a desire to

avoid creating domestic entrepreneurs.



The new failure is very well adjusted to the government reforms slogan

of " no rush but not pause ", in January, 2014 Law 311 was passed, which

modifies Law 300, to extend the leases to up to 150 acres to the most

productive sector of the peasantry, especially to people working for

state farms, that were excluded in the previous legislation. However,

the lease depends on there only being credit and services cooperatives

in the municipality; and b) the State farms as legal entities, basic

units of cooperative production and cooperatives of agricultural

production in the municipality are located at a distance exceeding three

(3) miles of the requested area.



This official data does not explain the fact that after leasing 3.7

million acres of idle lands (since Decree-Law 259 was adopted in 2008),

there has been reported increase in production; although there is

another 2.5 million acres of land idle of the total 15.6 million acres

of potentially productive land in the country. This negative result

reminds us of that phrase of Jose Marti: "Cuba has an enormous potential

to become a wealthy nation, but that is impossible if Cubans cannot be

wealthy as well."



Translated by: Rafael



From Diario de Cuba



2 March 2014



Source: No Rush… and No Results | Translating Cuba -

http://translatingcuba.com/no-rush-and-no-results/