The economist Pedro Monreal considered that the production crisis food in Cuba in proof of “incompetence” of the Government and not a simple concern of the population as the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) has described it in its announcement of the topics it will address in its next VIII Plenary Session of the Central Committee.
In https://twitter.com/pmmonreal/status/1805640331310022708Monreal made some suggestions to the PCC that could put an end to the food insecurity suffered by the majority of Cubans and that increases inequalities and poverty on the Island.
“They announce analysis of the Central Committee of the PCC on the food production in Cuba. It is not simply a ‘concern’ of the population but a very serious dimension of the deterioration of the standard of living and a manifestation of government incompetence“, the analyst started his thread.
In Monreal’s opinion, “in order for it to be useful, This analysis should be translated into agricultural policy decisions that go beyond the usual refrain of the ’63 measures’ and the official reluctance regarding property and market transformations aligned with the decisive weight of the private sector”.
“Probably the ‘analysis’ of the PCC Central Committee addresses aspects of land ownership and tenure that would be included in ‘the land law’ scheduled to be approved in December 2024but, although that is a crucial component, it should not be the only one,” he warned.
The economist cited three dimensions of the agricultural policy in which “relatively radical transformations would have to be made in Cuba in the short and medium term” such as property and tenure, the market, and investment and working capital.
“In terms of property and tenure, MSMEs could be established that grant the figure of legal entity to the usufructuaries so that they can quickly benefit from the usufruct for an indefinite period without the need to modify current regulations” and another “possible action would be to privatize state land through public auction with extensions between 67.1 and 134.2 hectares (five to ten caballerías). Only for the benefit of private national legal entities,” he recommended.
“It could be considered a agricultural policy goal of the ’20 in 25 and 50 in 30′ type: move to 20% of agricultural land under private ownership in 2025 and to 50% in 2023 (currently private property covers 14% of agricultural land),” Monreal added.
As to transformations in marketsMonreal proposed “a) establishment of a market for the private purchase/sale of property and tenure titles, b) agricultural production operating at market prices, c) abolition of Acopio.”
“Restoring the weight of agriculture in total investment should be a priority objective. at a level of 8% (currently it is approximately 3%), direct private import of capital goods and inputs, without tariffs, and direct agreements between the private producer and foreign investment,” Monreal noted.
For the economist, “a increase in the privatization of agriculture, in terms of propertywould be rational when one takes into account the high weight of the private sector in management. Agriculture is the only sector of the economy where, for some time now, the state company is not the main actor,” he said.
“The official reluctance to privatize agricultural land It does not make sense with an activity of ‘agriculture, livestock and forestry’ that only represents 0.75% of the GDP, when there is an activity of ‘commerce’ (19% of the GDP) with rapid dynamics of the private sector,” he said.
In the analyst’s opinion, “a private sector with very rapid growth in sales of retail goods (from 2.5% of the total in 2022 to 4.3% in 2023) is recognized as media owner and legal personality in an activity with a much larger scale than agriculture”.
“Leaving aside the ideologization of the economic issue, what, exactly, would be the official suspicion regarding bring land ownership in sync in Cuba with the relatively high degree of private management already existing in agricultureMonreal asked himself.
Finally, the economist cited some probable effects of property, market and investment transformations in Cuban agriculture: “real food security (not just chatter about it), reduction of inflation, strengthening of the national currency and improvement of the foreign trade balance.”
