Ricardo A. Puerta, Avanced Trading Corporation and José Alvarez, University of Florida [1]
Part II.
V. The First Test: Access to Inputs
Before analyzing relative productivity and production parameters, the first question one must answer is whether or not all types of agricultural production units have equal access to inputs and technology. If not, is the access determined by the degree of State intervention? In simple terms, are non-State farmers playing on a level field? The following quotes have been taken from the work of foreign and Cuban researchers, and statements submitted by Cuban officials to the United Nations and published by its Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes (World Food Program -WFP/CFA).[21] They provide some insights on this issue.
On the use of best available lands:
The cooperatives also benefitted in this [1981-83] period by the policy of granting the CPAs the best land, as land was traded by state farms and cooperatives in order to consolidate contiguous land areas (Deere et al., 1992, p. 125).
Before the revolution, the best flat soils in the province [of Camagüey] were used for sugarcane. The best of the remaining land was occupied by large beef-producing ranches, and the state farms within the project area have been established on these ranches. The remaining areas of land were generally the least valuable and belong to the present cooperative sector within the project area (WFP/CFA: 25/11-A (CDL) ADD. 3, 28 March 1988, p. 3).
Much of the land [in the CPAs] is still natural pasture --uneven and covered with shrubs and stones. The cooperatives consist of pieces of land which can be several kilometers apart. The Government has assisted cooperatives to establish greater contiguity of land area by exchanging state land with cooperative land (WFP/CFA, p. 4). [However, the collection of milk twice a day] is more easily achieved with CPA's than with CCS's because of the greater compactness and scale of production of the former and dispersion of the latter (WFP/CFA, p. 5).
On access to inputs in general:
On the whole, state farms have received significant quantities of modern inputs (fertilizers, irrigation, mechanization) since the mid-1960s (Forster, 1989, p. 251).
Private farmers had the lowest priority for buying scarce agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers, irrigation equipment, and farm machinery and vehicles, that would have enabled them to produce more. During our visits to the countryside, we met farmers who could not buy even such a commonplace implement as a hose for watering vegetable crops (Benjamin et al., 1986, p. 170).
Since the revolution, the state sector has received the benefit of well-organized technical and capital inputs and is now far in advance of the private sector in terms of development and standards of management (WFP/CFA, p.4).
Table 3. Structure of land distribution and use in Cuban agriculture, 1973 and 1989.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
___________Year________________
Item 1973 1989 Difference
______________________________________________________________________________________________
- - - 1,000 ha - - - 1,000 ha % (a)
Total area 8,907.7 11,016.4 + 2,108.7 + 24
Agricultural 6,270.2 6,775.1 + 504.9 + 6
Farmed 3,645.7 4,417.5 + 771.9 + 9
Non-farmed 2,624.5 2,357.6 - 266.9 - 3
Non-agricultural 2,637.5 4,241.3 + 1,603.8 + 18
Forest 1,771.7 2,610.9 + 839.2 + 9
Other 865.8 1,630.4 + 764.6 + 9
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Note: "Other" includes unfit and watery lands, and land for building purposes.
(a) In relation to the 8,907,700 ha in total land area in 1973.
Source: Comité Estatal de Estadísticas, 1977 Anuario, p.63; 1989. Anuario, pp. 185-186.
Table 4. Structure of land distribution and use in Cuban agriculture, by productive sector, 1989.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
_________Total area_________ _____________Share (a)___________
State CPA CCS Disp. Total State CPA CCS Disp.
Total
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
- - - - - - - 1,000 ha - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Percent - - - - - -
Agricultural
Farmed 3441.4 449.4 373.7 45.9 4410.4 78.0 10.2 8.5 3.3 100
Pastures 1240.4 272.0 308.9 67.8 1889.1 65.7 14.4 16.3 3.6 100
Idle 350.7 48.4 56.5 16.9 472.5 74.2 10.2 12.0 3.6 100
Total 5032.5 769.8 739.1 230.6 6772.0 74.3 11.4 10.9 3.4 100
Non-
Agricul. 4032.7 98.4 94.0 19.3 4244.4 95.0 2.3 2.2 0.5 100
TOTAL 9065.2 868.2 833.1 249.9 11016.4 82.3 7.9 7.6 2.2 100
____________________________________________________________________________________
(a) Calculated by the authors.
Source: Comité Estatal de Estadísticas (1991, p. 185)
This [average CCS] farmer cannot contribute as much towards the establishment of pasture and forage as the farmers in the CPA models because he does not have the necessary machinery. He must also chop his cane by hand. There is no investment in buildings, yards, weighing scales or machinery, apart from a share in the tractor-plus-trailer unit required for the CCS deliveries (based on 39 members per CCS). This farmer controls ticks on his cattle by means of a knapsack spray unit. He uses the regional project machinery unit to plant his pastures (25 hectares) and cane (two hectares). He has no irrigation (WFP/CFA, p. 18).
On taxation:
Under the tax law of April 1983, the production cooperatives received preferential treatment. Both CPAs and individual farmers were now subject to a progressive income tax on their sales to the state, to range from 5 percent to a maximum of 20 percent. But whereas the cooperatives would be taxed on the value of their net sales income, individual farmers would be subject to a tax on their gross sales income. Opposition to the progressive taxation structure was so vehement among peasants that in 1984 it was reduced to a flat 5 percent of gross sales income for all individual farmers. The progressive taxation of CPA profits was rescinded at the same time, although they maintained the advantage of being subject to a 5 percent tax of net, rather than gross, sales income (Martín Barrios 1987, 209) (Deere et al., 1992, p. 126).
On access to machinery and technical assistance:
By 1985, thirty-nine of the forty-five Havana Province sugarcane CPAs owned all the equipment necessary to harvest their own sugarcane fields. Individual sugarcane farmers, in contrast, continued to lease mechanized services from state farms (ANAP-MINAZ 1986, 1).[22] The latter situation was often beset by delays since the state farms generally carried out their own planting and harvest operations first, reducing the yields and thus profits of individual farmers. State policy also encouraged giving priority to the CPAs over individual farmers in the delivery of technical assistance and other aid (Deere et al., 1992, p. 125).
On interest rates and investment:
Whereas independent farmers paid interest rates of 6 percent, the CPAs would pay only 4 percent on their loans. Moreover, the lion's share of private-sector investment credit --the level of which was to increase significantly-- would now be channeled to the new cooperatives (Deere et al., 1992, p. 121).
The Bank of Cuba grants credit at a six-percent annual interest rate to members of CCS's and at four percent to the CPA's (WFP/CFA, p. 4).
The allocation of the WFP funds in the Jimaguayu Basin has been modified so that a larger share, or 51 percent, will be given to the cooperative and private producer sector and remaining 49 percent to the state farms. This allocation ... reflects the keen interest of both WFP and the Government in supporting the cooperative and private dairy producers, who are the poorest farmers in the project area and who have been very responsive in the first phase. It should be noted that whereas in the original project the distribution of the combined government and WFP funds to the public and cooperative and private producer sectors in the Jimaguayu basin were 88.6 percent and 11.4 percent respectively, during the next four years (1988-91) the percentage distribution has been modified so that the public sector will receive 73.1 percent and the cooperative and private producer sector 26.9 percent (WFP/CFA, p. 9).
On access to credit:
Data provided by the Cuban National Bank's Credit Division for Cooperatives and Peasants in 21 February 1991 for the 1979-90 period (Deere et al., 1992, Table 2, p. 124) reveal drastic inequalities. In 1979, CPAs received 7 million pesos (44 percent) in credit, while individual farmers obtained 9 million pesos (56 percent). In 1990, CPAs borrowed 47 million pesos (92 percent), while individual farmers were lent 4 million pesos (8 percent), reflecting a decreasing trend that started in 1982.
On the political motives:
The different treatment of CPAs and individual farmers with respect to interest rates, taxes, access to equipment and construction materials, and so on, is of course an economic incentive designed to make the CPAs more attractive and viable than individual farming (Deere et al., 1992, p. 141).
To delve further into the issue, let us analyze the only crop (sugarcane) for which official statistics are available (Table 5). Except for application of balanced fertilizer (N-P-K) with non-mechanical means (slightly higher in non-State farms), and with mechanical means (about the same in both sectors), the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this section is "no" in the case of sugarcane farmers:
(a) irrigated area in the non-State sector accounts for only 10 percent of its total cane area, while it is over 20 percent in the State sector.
(b) although the gap has been closing since the late 1980s, non-State farms still apply less nitrogen fertilizer than State farms by non-mechanical means;
(c) although the disparity has been decreasing since the mid-1980s, applications of herbicides by non-mechanical means in non-State farms are still between 50-60 percent lower than in the State sector; and
(d) access to mechanical inputs, with the exception of balanced fertilization mentioned above, shows even more disparity between the two sectors. Non-State farms use aerial fertilization in only two percent of their cane area, while State farms do it in about 20 percent of their area. The gap in the use of tractors for cultivation has been closing in recent years but it is still much lower in the non-State sector than in the State sector despite the fact that cultivation with non-mechanical means and hand weeding are also lower in the non-State sector (cannot hire labor) than in the State sector (Table 5).
It must be pointed out that non-State farms include CPAs which, as shown in a previous section of this paper, have the blessings of the State and preferential access to inputs when compared with CCS members and dispersed farmers. That explains the sharp increases in the use of nitrogen fertilizer, and of mechanical cultivation and mechanical balanced fertilization after 1975.[23]
Table 5. Comparison of State and non-State access to inputs and cultural activities as a percentage of sugarcane area, selected years 1975-89.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________Year 1975 1980 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
Activity S NS S NS S NS S NS S NS S NS S NS
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Percent(a)- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MECHANICAL
Aerial fert. 19.2 4.2 23.6 1.6 22.8 0.8 16.3 0.6 12.4 0.5 15.1 2.0 20.5 2.5 Balanced fert. 29.8 10.5 58.2 23.2 65.0 58.2 69.6 59.5 75.3 74.2 61.6 59.3 61.5 60.2 Cultivation 102.0 28.0 146.0 47.0 214.0 147.0 270.0 175.0 248.0 176.0 196.0 144.0 192.0 164.0 NON-MECHANICAL Balanced fert. 80.9 83.4 81.6 76.6 69.5 74.4 73.9 73.6 72.3 71.6 64.3 70.4 64.1 70.2 Nitrogen fert. 43.4 24.9 78.2 50.0 74.1 59.4 72.0 60.3 66.0 57.5 60.4 59.9 65.7 61.7 Cultivation 175.0 150.0 172.0 122.0 219.0 172.0 275.0 200.0 253.0 200.0 200.0 164.0 197.0 188.0 Herbicide ap. 103.0 24.0 142.0 36.0 110.0 41.0 128.0 53.0 126.0 57.0 113.0 62.0 132.0 75.0 Hand weeding 153.0 162.0 191.0 145.0 140.0 129.0 162.0 144.0 185.0 157.0 231.0 177.0 231.0 189.0 Area irrigated 10.7 5.9 21.7 8.2 24.5 8.9 NA NA 23.2 10.0 23.5 10.4 23.5 9.8 ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (a)Percentages higher than 100 represent activities performed more than once over the same area.
Source: Calculated by the authors from Comité Estatal de Estadísticas (1991, pp. 187, 190).
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