Cuba Cracks Down on Capitalist Farmers Markets
Published October 30, 2009 @ 09:56AM PT
Cuban leaders aren't embracing farmers markets, free market "agros" where vendors control prices rather than national authorities. The communist authorities are ending that capitalistic experiment and cracking down on those profiting from the enterprise. At a market where state workers appeared for an inspection, police had to be called when customers began a shouting match with them, the AP reports.
Farmers markets take control of food supplies out of government hands, but at least it allows a variety of food to reach those who need it. After an outcry by citizens, changes to farmers markets were pushed back to the new year. It's in the interest of farmers to sell directly to sellers rather than the government because they make more money. Cuban leaders aren't happy about farmers or sellers becoming rich, so the markets are closing.
This news comes despite Raul Castro's minor reforms towards so called 'socialism lite.' Castro is restructuring parts of the country's agricultural system, allowing farmers to own land previously left idle, hoping to make the country's agricultural system more efficient. Not permitting farmers to profit from their work is no way to encourage efficiency. At the farmers markets that have been scrutinized, many sellers stay away — it simply doesn't make sense to sell produce at a loss.
A UN project aims to increase food security through decentralization initiatives, production stimulation, and increasing the involvement of the private sector, but I imagine this will become unhinged should the Cuban government remained opposed to farmers markets.
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Mike Smith is associate editor at Change.org. Email: mike@change.org
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Mike Smith is missing an important part of the problem of food distribution through the farmers market. Cuba has experimented with them a number of time and each time the same problems lead the state to crack down. After selling a portion of their produce to the state at set prices farmers are allowed to sell the remaining portion to the public according to prices determined by supply and demand. Because market prices are always higher (and often substantially higher) that prices set by the government farmers have an incentive to divert as much as they can to these markets undermining efforts to deliver a steady supply of food to the population that cannot afford them on the free market. On the other hand, Cubans who earned dollars find these markets very appealing and bid up the price to obtain food items for themselves and sometimes for the businesses. Thus, a large part of the Cuban population that does not have access to dollars or higher income is allocated less food than it would be if the government could receive more of the production. At the same time, some farmers accumulate money and stratification of the Cuban society increases. From the perspective of developing socialism in Cuba, the problem of food production and distribution is a crucial ones and simply reporting the angry shoppers protested government's attempt to regulate farmers markets miss an important point.
Posted by Kamran Nayeri on 10/31/2009 @ 07:46PM PT
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