The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology movement of ANAP in Cuba: social process methodology in the construction of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty

Background

This article focuses on agroecology as a farming practice based upon principles rooted in the biology of a place and its organic matter. Agroecology has been promoted by community organizations and NGOs and is scaling up to national peasant organizations and social movements. This study looks at Cuba as a case study for La Via Campesina, a global peasant movement, and how agroecology has spread in Cuba from campesino-a-campesino, or peasant-to-peasant.

Conclusions & Takeaways

The authors describe agricultural shifts in Cuba as: an increase in productivity with the Green Revolution and its peak, collapse of agriculture with the fall of the Soviet Union, and an increase with agroecology beyond that of the Green Revolution. The authors claim that the community-based movement, which mobilizes farmers for farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange, is responsible for this post-Soviet productivity. They also claim that agroecology is more resilient to climate change, reduces dependency on food importation, and has provided roles in farming for all ages and genders in a family, making these systems appropriate to and resilient for local communities.