Marc Frank
Reuters
October 10, 2008
Communist Cuba has begun leasing land to private farmers, cooperatives and state companies for the first time in decades in a step forward for one of President Raul Castro's main economic reforms, official media said this week.
The move could not come at a better time, local economists said, as the country struggles with food shortages after hurricanes Ike and Gustav devastated crops last month.
"First parcels of vacant land handed over in Granma" said a headline in Demajagua, the Communist party newspaper for the southeastern province of Granma.
The report was the first mention in Cuba that land has actually been turned over since the plan was announced in July and applications were opened in September. The weekly paper said 33 parcels totaling 350 hectares (865 acres) were leased to farmers, cooperatives, individuals and other entities.
Demajagua said applications had been submitted for 61,808 hectares (152,725 acres) of the 76,675 hectares (189,461 acres) of state lands in Granma.
There has been no announcement at the national level that handovers have begun and it is not clear if the process has started in other provinces.
Farmers in central Camaguey province told Reuters they had been advised that land leases there would begin within a few weeks.
The handovers are the latest of several limited reforms implemented by Castro to try to make Cuba's state-run economy more productive since he formally replaced his ailing brother, Fidel Castro, as president in February.
Raul Castro's broadest reform has been in agriculture, where he has decentralized decision-making, reduced bureaucracy and increased prices to raise food production in the import-dependent nation.
Getting more land into the hands of private farmers, who have been more productive than state farms, is a key part of his plan.
CROP DAMAGE
The issue has become more critical in recent weeks after hurricanes Gustav and Ike destroyed 30 percent of Cuba's crops when they struck a month ago.
A decree law issued in July said private farmers who have shown themselves to be productive can increase their current land to a maximum of 40 hectares (99 acres) for a period of 10 years. The deal can be renewed.
Cooperatives and state farms also can request additional land to work for 25 years, with the possibility of renewing for another 25, according to the law. It did not specify how much more land the cooperatives can get.
The Cuban state owns more than 70 percent of arable land, of which more than 50 percent is fallow.
For many years the government has leased land to individuals who want to farm for the first time, but balked at doing the same for private farmers and cooperatives, by far the country's most productive.
The state-run National Information Agency said 5,692 land applications have been submitted in Granma, but figures for the entire country were not available.
The process of handing over lands will take time because of the need to do land surveys and other issues, a local official told Demajagua.
(Editing by Jeff Franks and Frances Kerry)
2008年10月13日 星期一
2008年9月27日 星期六
Cubans Line up for Chance to Use Idle State Land
Will Weissert
Associated Press
HAVANA September 17, 2008
Yenisel Rodriguez is a city-dwelling, 27-year-old anthropologist with zero experience working the land. But he thinks taking up urban farming could put more food on his table, and so he lined up Wednesday to ask Cuba's communist government for permission to try it himself.
"I saw the announcement on TV and that motivated me," Rodriguez said. "I don't have experience. I'm hoping they can tell me what to plant and where."
Cuba has begun accepting applications from private farmers and ordinary citizens like Rodriguez, hoping they'll put idle government land to better use than state planners have. It's part of a campaign by President Raul Castro to revive an agricultural sector crippled by decades of government mismanagement.
Landless Cubans can apply for about 33 acres (13 hectares), while productive farmers can increase their holdings to 100 acres (40 hectares) of state land. Officials pushed up the first day to apply after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike roared through Cuba, dealing a serious blow to food production.
Rodriguez, in his polo shirt and Mercedes-Benz baseball cap, stood out in a crowded government office in the Arroyo Naranjo district of southeastern Havana, where applicants in cowboy hats and mud-caked boots waited their turn.
He said he plans to farm in the evenings after his research shift at Cuba's Anthropology Institute, growing only enough to feed his family.
But Cuba will need thousands of farmers to produce much more than that in order to reduce food imports expected to cost the government US$2 billion this year.
While thousands of small farmers kept their plots after Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and still grow much of Cuba's food, the bureaucrats who took over large farms have made a mess of things: 55 percent of Cuba's arable land went underused last year, and on state farms, just 29 percent was actively used, the government said.
Cuba has not said how much land it will redistribute. Gilberto Zayas, Arroyo Naranjo's land control delegate, said most of those who want land will likely get it, but that inexperience is a major strike against applicants.
"It's obvious that we are going to take those with more experience," Zayas said. "What the country needs is willingness first, but also know-how."
Even if Rodriguez is allowed to try his hand at farming, most of what he produces will not go to his family. Zayas said farmers getting new land will be required to sell almost everything they produce to the state. In cases of simple subsistence farming, typically 80 percent of overall output goes to the government, he said.
Still, Rodriguez remains hopeful, saying he has brothers, uncles and neighbors who will help him out.
The state will provide seeds and fertilizer, a machete and watering tools to program participants. Private farmers can get concessions of up to 10 years, renewable for another 10. Cooperatives and companies can have renewable 25-year terms.
Zayas said the government will encourage those receiving new land to graze milk cows or plant fast-growing, leafy vegetables like lettuce, which thrive in Cuba's mild climate but are nonetheless hard to find here.
"What we need is production, no matter where it comes from," he said. "If the state had the necessary means, we wouldn't be going through this process."
Juan Corales, a 60-year-old retired police officer who said he spent all his life working a small family plot, asked permission Wednesday to raise pigs, goats and chickens on a tract of land near the corner of 100th Street and Flores Avenue in Havana.
"This is the best thing the state could have done," said Corales, a self-described hick.
"There is a lot of land, and lots of people who want to work," he said. "But before, there was always fighting and bureaucracy that made everything difficult."
Associated Press
HAVANA September 17, 2008
Yenisel Rodriguez is a city-dwelling, 27-year-old anthropologist with zero experience working the land. But he thinks taking up urban farming could put more food on his table, and so he lined up Wednesday to ask Cuba's communist government for permission to try it himself.
"I saw the announcement on TV and that motivated me," Rodriguez said. "I don't have experience. I'm hoping they can tell me what to plant and where."
Cuba has begun accepting applications from private farmers and ordinary citizens like Rodriguez, hoping they'll put idle government land to better use than state planners have. It's part of a campaign by President Raul Castro to revive an agricultural sector crippled by decades of government mismanagement.
Landless Cubans can apply for about 33 acres (13 hectares), while productive farmers can increase their holdings to 100 acres (40 hectares) of state land. Officials pushed up the first day to apply after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike roared through Cuba, dealing a serious blow to food production.
Rodriguez, in his polo shirt and Mercedes-Benz baseball cap, stood out in a crowded government office in the Arroyo Naranjo district of southeastern Havana, where applicants in cowboy hats and mud-caked boots waited their turn.
He said he plans to farm in the evenings after his research shift at Cuba's Anthropology Institute, growing only enough to feed his family.
But Cuba will need thousands of farmers to produce much more than that in order to reduce food imports expected to cost the government US$2 billion this year.
While thousands of small farmers kept their plots after Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and still grow much of Cuba's food, the bureaucrats who took over large farms have made a mess of things: 55 percent of Cuba's arable land went underused last year, and on state farms, just 29 percent was actively used, the government said.
Cuba has not said how much land it will redistribute. Gilberto Zayas, Arroyo Naranjo's land control delegate, said most of those who want land will likely get it, but that inexperience is a major strike against applicants.
"It's obvious that we are going to take those with more experience," Zayas said. "What the country needs is willingness first, but also know-how."
Even if Rodriguez is allowed to try his hand at farming, most of what he produces will not go to his family. Zayas said farmers getting new land will be required to sell almost everything they produce to the state. In cases of simple subsistence farming, typically 80 percent of overall output goes to the government, he said.
Still, Rodriguez remains hopeful, saying he has brothers, uncles and neighbors who will help him out.
The state will provide seeds and fertilizer, a machete and watering tools to program participants. Private farmers can get concessions of up to 10 years, renewable for another 10. Cooperatives and companies can have renewable 25-year terms.
Zayas said the government will encourage those receiving new land to graze milk cows or plant fast-growing, leafy vegetables like lettuce, which thrive in Cuba's mild climate but are nonetheless hard to find here.
"What we need is production, no matter where it comes from," he said. "If the state had the necessary means, we wouldn't be going through this process."
Juan Corales, a 60-year-old retired police officer who said he spent all his life working a small family plot, asked permission Wednesday to raise pigs, goats and chickens on a tract of land near the corner of 100th Street and Flores Avenue in Havana.
"This is the best thing the state could have done," said Corales, a self-described hick.
"There is a lot of land, and lots of people who want to work," he said. "But before, there was always fighting and bureaucracy that made everything difficult."
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