Project of Cuban Independent Agricultural Cooperative (ANAIC)

I.    Project Summary
 

The National Alliance of Independent Cuban Farmers (ANAIC), representing the nascent movement of independent farmers in Cuba, has requested technical and material assistance from Agricultural Cooperative Development International / Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (ACDI/VOCA).  The purpose of the assistance is to help ANAIC develop and strengthen Cuba’s independent market-oriented small farm sector.  Having opted to be independent of the state-managed agricultural control and support systems, the ANAIC farmers have turned to external NGOs with international experience in assisting independent small farmers and agricultural cooperatives.
The twelve-month project will expose ANAIC and its member farmers to relevant organizational and agricultural practices employed by farmers and agricultural cooperatives elsewhere in the hemisphere.  ANAIC will receive short-term visits from farmers and experts from other countries, and will send members on observational visits to agricultural operations abroad.  The project will also provide ANAIC with agricultural-related informational materials and support for ANAIC’s organizational development. 
The ACDI/VOCA project will support ANAIC’s aim of promoting additional cooperative arrangements between the independent agricultural sector in Cuba and external donors and NGOs.  The potential for establishing such relationships will be a consideration in the selection of advisors and destinations for observational travel.  

 II.                U.S. Policy and USAID Strategy Context

  A.     Support for the Cuban People Policy
The U.S. policy to promote and prepare for a peaceful democratic transition in Cuba through measures to reach out to the Cuban people has its origins in the Cuba Democracy Act of 1992.  In 1995, Administration policy statements highlighted the importance of supporting the development of civil society in Cuba as an important step in preparing for a democratic transition.  Following the award of the first USAID grant pursuant to this policy, the State Department released the following statement:
“The United States Government’s policy toward Cuba is to support a peaceful transition to democracy.  We believe strongly that change in Cuba must come from within, led by Cubans on the island who recognize the problems and injustices of the current system and challenge them.  Increasing the flow of information to, from and within Cuba is essential to fostering this dynamic, as is outside support and advice to independent groups trying peacefully to carve out space for their activities.  President Clinton has made this a priority, initiating measures in October 1995 to permit groups in the U.S. to develop such activities.  As part of this policy the U.S. Government provided a $500,000 grant to Freedom House"
This policy received renewed legislative endorsement through the Libertad Act of 1997 (Helms-Burton), with USAID funding authorized in section 109 of the Act.  The State Department Reauthorization Bill currently in Congress includes a provision that it is the sense of Congress that additional assistance resources should be made available for this purpose.

B.     President Clinton’s January 5, 1999 Cuba Policy Measures

  U.S. policy toward Cuba recognizes that the development of civil society and independent activity there need not be focused on political issues to positively contribute to a peaceful democratic transition in Cuba.  The development of additional space for organized religious activity has been seen as one positive development, as has the increase in the amount of independent economic activity.
Indeed, for most Cubans, it is the failure of the statist economic model to provide for their basic needs that is the most compelling issue for them.  The failure of Cuban statist agricultural policies to provide either sufficient export earnings or food for local consumption is of acute concern to virtually all Cubans.  Modest reforms in this sector reflect the government’s awareness of its considerable vulnerability from continued poor agricultural production.  Yet the halting nature of these reforms reveals the regime’s concern that independent economic activity, particularly if it leads to independent associations, unions or cooperatives, could eventually threaten the political hegemony of the regime.
On January 5, 1999, President Clinton signaled the U.S. appreciation for the potential significance of independent farmers and cooperatives to help promote the transition to a free, independent, and prosperous Cuba.  Along with other policy measures, he authorized the sale of agricultural inputs to independent farmers and cooperatives.
At this point in time the measure is primarily symbolic, as conceded by the Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America.  In the press briefing on the measures, Acting Assistant Secretary Romero explained: “Will these groups now be able to afford lots of U.S. products and agricultural implements and food?  The answer to that is probably no.  Will they in the future?  That’s our sincerest hope.”
By drawing attention to Cuban independent farmers and cooperatives, even if commercial sales are not presently feasible, President Clinton provoked two distinctly different responses from Cuba.  On January 13, the government-run National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) repudiated the Clinton measure, claiming that “the revolution” has provided for all the needs of the campesinos.   On January 14, the non-official National Alliance of Independent Cuban Farmers (ANAIC) issued a counter declaration.  ANAIC challenged the legitimacy of ANAP to speak for farmers and accused it of misrepresenting the real situation of farmers.  It stated that the government’s rejection of outside assistance does not mean that the farmers are not in need of assistance or that they wouldn’t accept it.   ANAIC concluded its declaration by stating that it understood that the new measures by the U.S. government responded to Pope John Paul II’s call for an opening to Cuba.
ANAIC’s use of the term “assistance” in referring to the White House authorization of sales of agricultural inputs was not the result of misunderstanding the measure.  Rather it was a realistic assessment of what is needed at this stage in order to advance the day in which commercial transactions will be feasible.

C.     Supporting Initiatives from within Cuba

  USAID’s worldwide developmental policies emphasize the importance of supporting indigenous initiatives over transplanted solutions for which there may not be indigenous support.  U.S. Cuba policy also emphasizes supporting civil society initiatives that genuinely arise from the Cuban people.
The former has a developmental rationale.  The latter reflects the particular realities of Cuba.   Independent groups in Cuba are commonly characterized by the Cuban government as being instruments of external enemies and as not reflecting genuine concerns of Cubans.  This is particularly true for independent journalists and for organizations advocating political change or denouncing human rights abuses.
Since the founding of the first independent agricultural cooperative two years ago, the movement has been subjected to a degree of harassment and the predictable characterization that the movement was inspired by foreign enemies of the revolution rather than legitimate grievances.  However, such perceptions or charges have faded as other farmers and government officials have witnessed their serious commitment and the results of their labor.
The campesino membership of ANAIC, its agenda, and its approach to promoting its agenda, clearly demonstrate that it is a grass-roots movement centered on basic issues of concern to campesinos throughout Cuba.  By contrasting the state control of campesinos’ livelihoods and the current condition of campesinos with the promises made to them in 1959 by the revolutionaries, ANAIC is not easily dismissed as counter-revolutionary.

D.    Multilateral Efforts

An objective of U.S. Cuba policy is the encouragement of efforts to direct official and private assistance from other countries to independent groups in Cuba.  However, much of the other donor assistance nominally going to independent entities continues to be directed to government-controlled NGOs, such as the official agricultural cooperatives (CPAs).  This is not a result of a general aversion on the part of other private and official donors for truly independent Cuban NGOs.  Rather, it results from the relative absence of truly independent NGOs in sectors of interest to donors, such as agriculture.  Donors and international NGOs that are interested in helping Cuban farmers need an intermediary Cuban organization through which they can work, and they have seen little choice but to work through or in conjunction with ANAP, the official organization established to serve and control farmers.
While still small and young, ANAIC aims to serve as an alternative for independent farmers and those in the international community that wish to assist independent farmers.  Though most of the modest assistance it has received to date is from the exile community, ANAIC has received some agricultural manuals and publications from SETEM, a Spanish NGO.  SETEM has also pledged to solicit additional assistance from its network of associated European developmental NGOs.  In its quest for external assistance, ANAIC has approached the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, and the Havana missions of FAO, the EU, Canada and the Netherlands.  ANAIC received an encouraging response to its request to the president of Costa Rica for assistance, and has developed potentially useful contacts with the Junta Agropecuaria Dominicana.
CubaNet, an organization that publishes the works of independent Cuban journalists on the Internet, provides special coverage of the independent cooperative movement in Cuba.  Through such coverage, information on the aims and progress of ANAIC is available to a worldwide audience.

E.     Independent Cooperatives – Democratic Microcosm

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans are engaged in small-scale entrepreneurial activity as handymen, traders, restaurant operators or farmers selling goods to farmers’ markets.  As valuable as this development is for providing Cubans with market and entrepreneurial experience, the general absence of organized independent associations among these economic actors limits the extent to which this entrepreneurial activity translates to democracy-building experience.
A self-managed cooperative or an association of independent private farmers, on the other hand, can serve as a microcosm of democracy.  Leaders are freely elected and held accountable; consensus building and compromise are practiced; civic obligations are freely entered into in exchange for individual benefits, and so on.  Even in an official agricultural cooperative in Cuba, where the state has a heavy hand in production and marketing decisions, many of the decisions regarding daily life are arrived at democratically among cooperative members.
To the extent other free associations of independent economic actors emerge in Cuba during this pre-transitional stage, they should merit outside support to further the dual goals of promoting democracy and a free market in Cuba.  At present, the independent agricultural cooperative movement represents a fairly unique opportunity to contribute to both goals.

F.      Preparing for Transition – the Agricultural Sector

Reorganization, restructuring and reactivation of the agricultural sector in Cuba will be critical issues during Cuba’s transition to democracy and a market economy, as they have been in other post-communist transitions.  Privatization and investment may be the principal solution for many large-scale state agricultural enterprises.
But for much of the agricultural sector, independent cooperatives involving different degrees of cooperative activity among individual landholders will be the means for increasing productivity and farmer incomes.  The existing official agricultural cooperatives (CPAs) are likely to become independent as government control is eventually removed.  With more difficulty, some of the state farms organized as pseudo-cooperatives (UBPCs) will also make such a transformation.  Independent farmers, presently “served” by the government-run credit and service cooperatives (CCSs) will seek greater control over such services through the transformation of these operations into independent cooperatives, or, as the current pioneering independent agricultural cooperatives in Cuba are doing, create independent cooperatives from scratch.
The prospect that the current regime in Cuba will embrace the independent cooperative movement as a means to increase agricultural productivity and/or satisfy farmer demands for more freedom is unlikely.  Nonetheless, the existence of an independent cooperative movement, even with its growth constrained under current circumstances, serves as a valuable demonstration project for Cuban farmers, technocrats and officials who will need to wrestle with transition issues in the future.  It also serves as useful experience for external donors and NGOs that expect to provide assistance in the agricultural sector during Cuba’s transition to a market economy.

G.    Relation to Other USAID Cuba Projects

The Institute for Democracy in Cuba, funded by USAID, serves as a coordinating mechanism for a number of Cuban-American organizations involved in civil society support activities with groups and individuals in Cuba.  Since 1997, the individuals who formed the Support Group for the Independent Cooperatives in Miami have worked closely with the Institute to maintain contact with the independent cooperative movement and send small amounts of humanitarian supplies and informational materials to its members.  Technical materials of utility to the independent farmers have not yet been provided through the current support arrangements.  With assistance from this project, the Support Group for the Independent Cooperatives will become one of the conduits utilized to channel technical materials to ANAIC, and the cooperation with the Institute for Democracy in Cuba will be continued.
The U.S. Cuba Business Council (USCBC) has a USAID grant to examine transition issues in various economic sectors, including agriculture.  The USCBC project, or other future transition planning activities that USAID might undertake or finance, can potentially benefit from insights derived from real-time demonstration projects involving Cubans currently wrestling with system-change issues. ACDI/VOCA welcomes the opportunity to collaborate or exchange information with organizations involved in Cuba transition planning or research activities.
In a May 7, 1998 statement before the Subcommittee on Trade of the House Ways and Means Committee, the State Department’s Coordinator for Cuban Affairs declared that the USAID Cuba program provided opportunities for the private agricultural sector in Cuba to meet its counterparts in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the U.S. To date, this has not happened.
The statement referred to the Partners of the Americas project to sponsor exchanges between non-governmental groups in Cuba and elsewhere in the hemisphere.  However, that project steered clear of groups not sanctioned by the Cuban government, and thus there were no exchange opportunities offered to independent farmers or independent cooperatives.   As the Partners project moves from USAID funding to Ford Foundation support and tailors its exchange program to increase the comfort level of Cuban authorities, the prospects that the independent cooperatives could benefit from the Partners program are further reduced.
Under this project, ACDI/VOCA will fund exchanges, and, in conjunction with the Support Group for the Independent Cooperatives, will coordinate with other U.S., European and Latin American organizations that could offer exchange opportunities to ANAIC members and officers.  
CubaNet, which received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), was instrumental in helping the Support Group for the Independent Cooperatives receive a small startup grant from NED of $24,000.  CubaNet is a candidate for graduation to USAID funding.

III.             The Cuban Agricultural Sector

A.     A Structure Developed During The Period of Soviet Support

Cuba’s agrarian reform laws enacted in 1959 and 1963, along with subsequent policies, resulted in the extensive collectivization and state control of the agricultural sector.  By expropriating large farms and taking control of other lands, the state became owner of 80% of Cuba’s arable land.  It became the planner of the agricultural sector, the sole source of farm supplies, the collector of all harvests, the distributor of all food, and the sole marketer and vendor of Cuba’s export crops.
In the mid-1970s, roughly 20% of agricultural lands remained in the hands of small farmers.   Since 1963, small farmers had been encouraged to join state-managed credit and service cooperatives (CCSs) as a means to obtain credit, agricultural inputs and technical services.  Farmers lost much of their independence over production and marketing, but they continued to work their farms individually.  In 1976, the government launched a preferred organizational approach for small farmers known as the agricultural production cooperative (CPA).  In the CPAs, all land was pooled or collectivized.  Farmers were induced to join CPAs through the offer of lower-interest loans and preferred access to inputs and social services. 
By the beginning of the 1990s government estimates indicated that only 3.4% of agricultural land remained in the hands of independent farmers not associated with official cooperatives.   These farms have had the least-favored access to agricultural inputs. Like the CCS and CPA farmers, they have been required to meet production quotas for the state, but they have been relatively free to develop their own production plans to meet these quotas.     
The government organization responsible for “guiding” and representing the interests of the official cooperatives and the small farmers not organized into cooperatives is the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP).  Characterized as having somewhat more of a constituency representational function than other “mass organizations” in Cuba, it is clear that ANAP’s predominant function is to provide centralized direction to the sector it oversees.

  B.     Agricultural Sector Performance

The imported Soviet model of predominant state ownership and centralized planning in the agricultural sector did not perform efficiently in the Soviet Union or in Cuba.  An analysis of official Cuban agricultural statistics from the period prior to the end of Soviet subsidies (Ricardo Puerta and Jose Alvarez, 1993) indicates a very strong negative correlation between the degree of state intervention in each form of agricultural production and the level of its productivity.
The four forms analyzed, in decreasing order of state intervention, were the state farms, the CPAs, the CCSs and finally the independent farmers.  In spite of the fact that the quality of the land, the level of investment and the access to inputs decreased as the level of state intervention decreased, productivity increased progressively at lower levels of state intervention.
For the most part, Cuban authorities have not been unaware of the detrimental economic consequences of heavy state intervention in the agricultural sector.  However, as long as the system was propped up with huge Soviet subsidies in the form of above-market prices for export crops like sugar and below-market prices for inputs, such as fertilizer, fuel and pesticides, there was no imperative for authorities to reform the system.  An experiment with farmers’ markets between 1980 and 1986 did confirm the responsiveness of Cuban small farmers to market incentives and helped to alleviate food shortages.  However, the financial success of both farmers and middlemen created a backlash of political orthodoxy and the markets were closed.

C.     “Special Period” Partial Reforms

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dramatic contraction of trade with its former trading partners, and the elimination of subsidies in the trade that remained, the weaknesses in the Cuban economy were critically exposed.  The Cuban economy contracted by an estimated 35% soon after the collapse.
By 1993, total imports had fallen to $2.04 billion from a 1989 level of $8.14 billion.  Exports dropped from $5.4 billion to $1.14 billion during the same period.  Fertilizer and pesticide availability dropped by 80%, imported oil by 53%, and imported wheat and other grains by half.  Lack of animal feed resulted in a 50% reduction in cattle stocks.  Ministry of Agriculture officials estimated that the caloric and protein consumption of the Cuban population dropped by 30% from the levels in the 1980s.
The scarcity of inputs hit the large-scale highly mechanized state farm sector the hardest. The traditional inefficiency of the state farms could no longer be ignored.  The greater productivity of the CPAs (relative to the state farms, not to individual small farms) inspired a restructuring reform of the state farm sector.  Between 1993 and 1996, two-thirds of state farmlands were reorganized into Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPCs).  The UBPCs, which currently occupy 47% of cultivated land, average about one-tenth the size of the former state farms.  Land was provided in usufruct (free perpetual lease, not ownership), and in theory the UBPCs were to be self-managed.
The top-down UBPC experiment generally has proved to be a failure.  While the state farms were nominally dissolved, their governing organizations often still exist and continue to play a key role in the economic decisions of the UBPCs.  Meanwhile, government officials often fault the UBPCs themselves for their inability to step up to the self-management challenge. Observers report that UBPC farmers, who previously received salaries as agricultural workers and now are salaried as cooperative members, have not been sufficiently inspired by the name change to increase their productivity.
Portions of former state farmland have also been distributed to create new individual farm units.  Since 1994, nearly 24,000 farms or parcels have been distributed for full-time or part-time food cultivation, with roughly an equal number of individual parcels created for tobacco, coffee and cacao production.  Indications are that this initiative has been more successful.
As the percentage of agricultural lands formally designated as state farms has fallen, an increasing share of the management of the state farm sector has been taken over by the military.   This reflects the recognized superior organizational capacity and discipline of the Cuban military as compared to the civilian bureaucracy.
The government reopened the farmers’ markets in 1994 and allowed those who met their quotas to sell their surplus in the markets in an effort to increase food supplies to consumers and provide an incentive to farmers. Typically the government sets quotas at 80% of expected production for delivery to the state, while continuing to be the sole purchaser of cane and export crops.  A farm or farmer not meeting the quota can be fined multiples of the value of any shortfall in the amount provided to the government collection agency at the end of the season.  Farmers who cannot demonstrate that they have complied with quotas are not allowed to sell in farmers’ markets. 
The majority of commodities sold in the farmers’ markets is produced by individuals, members and non-members of CSSs.  They supply 60% of the meat and 50% of other products.  The next largest suppliers are the state farms, particularly the ones operated by the military.  They supply 39% of the meat and 41% of other products.  The CPAs and UBPCs combined supply less than 1% of the meat and less than 9% of other products. Farmers are obtaining prices in these markets several times what the government pays them for their products, as the markets have succeeded in stimulating production of crops that can be sold freely and in reducing food shortages.
While there have been some positive results from the reforms, by 1998 Cuba’s agricultural sector was still at only half of its 1989 production level.  Many Cuban officials and analysts recognize that the reforms need to be taken much further, but there is no indication at present that any major policy changes are being actively considered.
The executive secretary of the UN’s Economic Commission noted recently that Cuba needs to deepen the reforms, give greater autonomy to producers, eliminate the government’s excessive role in agricultural cooperatives, and open up the sugar industry to foreign investment. Philip Peters of the de Tocqueville Institution reported that there are those within official circles in Cuba who advocate a gradual but radical reduction in the state’s role, including:
1)      replacing the state’s agricultural input monopoly with a decentralized network of businesses responsive to producers;
2)      eliminating barriers to supply in the farmers’ markets such as the taxing of quantities brought to market rather than quantities sold and prohibiting the sale of products such as potatoes and dairy products; and
3)      eliminating or reducing the state’s central food distribution system as new sources of production and distribution emerge.
As evidenced by the existence and platform of ANAIC, Cuban farmers seem to share this assessment.

IV.              The National Alliance of Independent Cuban Farmers (ANAIC)

  A.     Aims and Origin

The movement that became ANAIC originated in 1996 with ten farm families in Loma del Gato in the province of Santiago de Cuba -- the same mountainous Sierras from which Fidel Castro launched the revolution.  Between them, the farmers owned about 400 acres.  Their first step was to begin advocating before local workers’ councils for the right of farmers to decide which crops to plant.  They further argued for an end to price setting and government quotas, and for the right to sell their produce to whomever they chose.
In May 1997 these farm families formed an independent cooperative called La Transición.   They began to share equipment and labor and develop joint long-term plans. Pursuing their advocacy campaign for greater farmers' rights, they called for the rights to sell produce directly to the tourist sector and foreign markets, hire labor and raise and slaughter cattle at their discretion.
In September 1997 contacts between Transición farmers and farmers in Guantánamo province led to the creation of Progresso I, a second independent cooperative of 14 families in the town of Bejuquera de Filipinas.  Between the two cooperatives, there are 55 working members.
The next month the two independent cooperatives formed an umbrella organization which they named ANAIC, the National Alliance of Independent Cuban Farmers.  In February 1998 a third group of farmers established a cooperative in San Jose de Las Lajas in Havana province which they named Progresso II.  While the cooperative has not yet become operational due to resource constraints, the Progresso II farmers have affiliated with ANAIC.  30 farmers from the province of Las Tunas joined ANAIC in September 1998.
On the occasion of its first anniversary, ANAIC disseminated the following principal objectives:
1)      To defend the interests of farmers and become the voice that expresses the doubts and concerns of  farmers;
2)      To become the representative of farmers, be they independent farmers or organized farmers;
3)      To redirect agriculture policy in order to defend farmers’ rights;
4)      To defend the cooperatives’ rights to freedom of production, freedom of choice of markets and freedom of product prices, so that the cooperatives can fully develop;
5)      Demonstrate with yields and total production the efficiencies of the existing independent cooperatives; and,
6)       Make it known in Cuba that this type of organization is superior and produces better results.

B.     Relations with Cuban Authorities

The Catholic Church is the most notable independent organization in Cuba that has managed to carve out some space for itself by carefully calibrating its positions to reduce the risk of losing that space.  Central to its strategy has been a careful emphasis on its apolitical spiritual and humanitarian mission.
ANAIC similarly disavows a political agenda.  Its mission is purely economic, seeking property and free-market rights, common aspirations of farmers in Cuba and around the world.  It advertises rather than hides its activities, seeking to serve as a demonstration model of how farmers ought to operate in Cuba.  It challenges government practices on efficiency and general welfare grounds, but does not oppose the government.  It opts out of statist agricultural control systems, but does so legally.
The Cuban constitution recognizes the right of Cubans to form agricultural cooperatives.  It does not reserve an exclusive role for the state in the formation and management of agricultural cooperatives.  ANAIC and the independent cooperatives were formed in accordance with the Cuban constitution and laws pertaining to non-governmental organizations.  The necessary documents for recognition were duly submitted to the government.  There has been no official response to these applications, as is generally the case with all independent NGOs in Cuba that have complied with the same requirements.
Immediately following its founding, the Transición cooperative sent a letter to Cuba’s National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón declaring that it would no longer sell its harvest to the government.  In response, each family in the cooperative was fined 500 pesos.  The cooperative then appealed the matter to the local court.  The authorities made the case that the farmers had failed to comply with their contractual obligations to the state to turn over a share of their produce.  But the farmers pointed out that they had signed no contract that year, and the judge consequently negated the fines.
In August 1997 one of the leaders of the movement, Diosmel Rodriguez, was pressured into exile, where he established the Support Group for the Independent Cooperatives in Miami.  Other leaders were unceremoniously expelled from ANAP, the official small farmers’ organization.  In May 1998, ANAIC planned a national meeting of members and formally invited the president of the National Assembly and Raul Castro to attend and hear proposals on agricultural policies that had been prepared by ANAIC for the meeting.  Cuban independent journalists were also invited.  The meeting did not occur due to the temporary detention of ANAIC leaders and an intimidating police presence on the path to the planned meeting place. 
On the other hand, government authorities have commended the independent cooperatives on their production and have entered into negotiations with the cooperatives to respond to various demands, offering road improvements, additional land and electrification.  In February of 1999 an ANAP official proposed that the vice president of the Transición cooperative, who had earlier been expelled from ANAP, become the new president of a local official credit and service cooperative.  The Transición vice president refused the offer.
The government’s combination of harassment and obstruction on the one hand combined with attempts to co-opt or placate ANAIC on the other resembles the state’s treatment of the Catholic Church.  In both cases, the government’s approach seems to reflect a mixture of ambivalence and calculated tactics.

C.     Progress to Date

ANAIC’s principal accomplishment to date has been to carve out a space in which farmers individually and jointly can be free to make their own production and marketing decisions.  However, the success of the movement and the welfare of the participating farm families depend on being able to utilize this space to increase production and incomes.
ANAIC farmers have voluntarily distanced themselves from the state-controlled distribution system for agricultural inputs and services (as unreliable as it often is.) They have had to make do without certain important inputs, such as pesticides, that would have significantly enhanced the amount of their harvests, or packaging and storage materials that would have protected the value of the crops.  The modest private contributions they have received from external sources to date have served more as a morale boost than as a means to meet critical input needs.
These situations notwithstanding, anecdotal reports from ANAIC and from independent Cuban journalists indicate favorable comparisons between the results of the ANAIC independent cooperatives and those of neighboring farmers.  This appears to be due to good production and marketing decisions and to the more intensive effort expended by ANAIC farmers.  ANAIC has members and leaders with degrees in agronomy, economics and engineering.
The farmers in Progresso I produced a tobacco crop last season significantly superior to the results on government-supported farms in the region.  The explanation given to the surprised ANAP officials was that the Progresso I farmers chose not to plant the seed variety promoted by the authorities.  Based on their own experience and knowledge, the Progresso I farmers chose to plant a seed variety they believed was more appropriate for the local climatic conditions.
Since food production was affected by drought conditions, UBPCs and CPAs in the neighborhood of the Transición independent cooperative sent their members to purchase food for their families from Transición.  The independent cooperative had achieved a good harvest despite the drought.  When ANAP recently sought to recruit the vice president of the Transición cooperative to head up a local state-managed credit and service cooperative in the case cited above, the proposal was explained in terms of the high regard the local farmers had for the production results of the Transición cooperative. 
During the preparation for last spring’s plantings, the contrast between the dynamics of the independent cooperatives and those of the state-managed sector could not have been more evident.  With rented tractors, the Transición farmers worked 18-hour days to complete the tilling.  This prompted an observant CPA farmer to challenge an ANAP official who was minimizing the prospects of the independent cooperatives.  He wanted to know, “How is it possible that you put a tractor here 15 days ago and it has yet been put to work, while the Transición farmers are working day and night?”
With the exception of tobacco, for which the state is the only available purchaser, Progresso I and Transición produce for local markets and their own consumption.  In April 1999, the Progresso I and Transición cooperatives reported producing 80 quintales of beans, 100 quintales of corn, 300 quintales of gourds and a daily production of 130 litres of milk.  At the end of 1998, Transición reported production of 200 quintales of yams and yuca and 80 quintales of rice.  With an increase in production of grains for animal feed, Transición has expanded chicken and pig raising, with the expectation that they would have 200 chickens for sale or consumption last fall.  Current plans include the further expansion of cultivated areas and greater attention to the production of pigs, chickens and rabbits, for which there is strong demand in the local market.  Future plans include the development of pineapple, mango, sapote, avocado and fish farming.