6-02-06, 10:40 am

The insults to their dignity, lack of land and work, misery and insecurity were left far behind, the absolute defenseless state against the landowners and eviction were left far behind as well.

Such was the state of hardship and apathy into which our farmers were subdued before 1959; 89 % were tenant farmers, 60% of them lived in huts with a dirt floors, 64% lacked sanitary facilities and only 8 % received free health care from the State, with tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid and intestinal parasites endemic.

33,5% were unemployed or under employed, 43% were illiterate and only 7,2% had electric power.

This situation was denounced by Fidel in his celebrated plea: “ History will absolve me” and was the political basis of a turn around that began on the eve of the triumph of the revolutionar with the Law of Agrarian Reform and the handing over of titles for the ownership of land to the farmers who worked those lands, the true owners.

The Revolution also guaranteed employment to the farm workers and others on the peoples’ farms, together with other measures that offered technical, material and financial assistance with the guarantee of secure markets and fair prices for their products.

Social programs reached up into the mountains and plains, offering not only an improvement in the quality of life for farmers, but also the improvement in the school levels which today they proudly enjoy together with their children, “ even beyond university” as a farmer from Baracoa once told me.

New methods of production and organization

The creation of agro-production cooperatives, allowed the improvement of social conditions for these men and women on the farms, with new concepts on the use of land which increased incomes and at the same time more than a thousand new communities were created, including the mass introduction of domestic facilities and equipment.

More than sixty thousand associates work in the production cooperatives and some fifteen thousand are contract workers. Together with these and the pensioners depend some half a million people. They own the collective land deeds and the rest of farm equipment, respecting the will of those who renounced being individual owners and accepting a new and advanced form of agrarian production.

There are also over three thousand other credit and services cooperatives that account for 15% of cultivated land in the country and where more than 260 thousand small farmers associate by means of a Directive Board and Administration Councils that take care of the countless services which were previously in the hands of the State.

The labor policy also reached the countryside, as every cooperative must define its character, its internal bylaws, the registration of partners, the amounts of daily pay, the distribution of profits and self consumption, also how to deal with conflicts and claims, vital issues for the good functioning of the cooperatives.

All these interesting elements were explained by Dr. Orlando Peñate, Vice-president of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), during the 2nd Congress on Social Security carried out in Havana on March..

A new system of social security to protect farmers within the association and their families, was created for protection in cases of illness, either professional or work, accidents, maternity or partial or full disability, death and old age.

More than 78 thousand cooperative members have received retirement benefits by means of legislation that includes men and women with the appropriate age requirements.

During the special period, there was a further hand over of land in order to increase agrarian production, when another100 thousand people became new small farmers.



The future of pensioners

Dr. Peñate made some comments on efforts implemented within the cooperatives and ways to achieve the highest integration of older people into different activities.

“Our organization encourages these people to be hired to continue working in the cooperatives and go on doing different kinds of jobs according to their age,” he said.

Adding,“ANAP promotes their participation in work and study commissions but at the same time they contribute with their knowledge to new generations, they feel themselves encouraged and useful.”

As an old farmer told me; “With the Revolution we have land title deeds, something we never dreamt on the farms”