THE POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE (original) (raw)

200,000 Cuban farming families trained in agroecology

For 30 years, the Cuban people have been transforming their food system, resulting in one of the most successful agroecology scaling experiences in the world.

The Cuban revolution’s commitment to science, universal education, and social organization laid the groundwork for the scaling of agroecology. An educated society with a culture of solidarity and collaboration catalyzed strategic alliances between government, farmers, researchers, students, the media, consumers, and other key actors.

The National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) Farmer to Farmer Movement has been integral to Cuba’s agroecology scaling success. More than half the Cuban peasantry (200,000 farming families) have been trained in agroecology. With strong government support at local, provincial, and national levels, urban and peri-urban farms have spread across the entire country and represent 14% of the agricultural land. In the early 1990s, 80% of agricultural land was state managed. Since then, several progressive agrarian reforms have been implemented. Now, more than 70% (3.5 million hectares) is managed by cooperatives and family farms. This shift has brought higher levels of agricultural and food diversity, productivity, and efficiency, as well as embedded local food systems.

Cuba’s agroecological transformation was driven by an economic crisis that opened political space for organic and agroecological farmers and researchers to gain power; progressive land reforms; supportive government policies; decentralization of food systems planning and distribution; and successful farmer-to-farmer training programs.

In these recent times of global and national crisis, Cuba is making ever stronger commitments to strengthening agroecology and building a support structure for food sovereignty. In 2020, the Cuban government passed a National Plan for Food Sovereignty and Nutritional Education, and an Agroecology Law is being developed in 2021. Coupled with this legislation are several laws and plans that provide legal structures to promote local food systems planning and territorial development, that decentralize power, and that seek to build stronger and more resilient communities.

Image credit: Margarita Fernandez

Case Study

INCREASING SYSTEMS-BASED RESEARCH IS ESSENTIAL FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD

Healthy, equitable, renewable, resilient, inclusive, diverse, and interconnected food systems that are shaped by people, communities, and their institutions are the future of food. Structural and systemic blockages that stymie society’s progress toward food systems transformation are no longer acceptable.

Until now, narrow measures of success have guided what we value as evidence and have dictated where investments and policies are directed. Reductionist approaches to research have limited our collective understanding of the positive outcomes agroecological and regenerative food and farming systems have across human, social, economic, and environmental measures. These flawed methods have contributed to siloed decision-making and dysfunctional governance, with structural lock-ins and exacerbated power imbalances.

It’s time for a new, transformative research agenda that recognizes and learns from diverse evidence, knowledge systems, and ways of knowing, one that upholds and values the interconnectedness between our food systems, health, and the planet long recognized by Indigenous Peoples and farmers around the world.

Enabling this holistic and inclusive understanding of food systems’ impacts is essential for the public good.

Public and private funders of food and agricultural research have a responsibility to encourage holistic and transdisciplinary approaches with an emphasis on indivisible ecological, health, social, and economic goals. Philanthropy, multilateral donors, researchers, and policymakers can play a uniquely impactful role when working in partnership with farmer and Indigneous People’s organizations, civil society, the private sector, and others.

The Contributors to this compendium have emphasized that greater levels of funding for action-oriented public research that upholds diverse evidence will increase the viability, performance, and ability of agroecology, regenerative approaches, and Indigenous foodways, allowing them to flourish and, in turn, to deepen their impacts.

The roots of agroecology, regenerative approaches, and Indigenous foodways represent a continuous source of knowledge that can inform a repaired relationship between people and nature. We must channel the everyday acts of courage, imagination, ingenuity, and perseverance of the farmers, food providers, women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples already working on this transformation and join as forces for change.

We know from the evidence that it can be done.