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Project
of Cuban Independent Agricultural Cooperative
(Cont...)
V. The
Support Group for the Independent Cooperatives
In
August 1997, Diosmel Rodriguez, one of the
founders of the independent cooperative movement
in Cuba, was forced into exile and took on the
mission of helping ANAIC mobilize international
support for the movement.
With a college degree in accounting,
Rodriguez had served for years as an army
accountant and government statistician.
His political activism in 1993 resulted
in a three-year imprisonment for “distributing
enemy propaganda.”
Following his release, he focused on
social and economic issues.
In addition to his involvement with the
founding of ANAIC, he helped found an
independent press organization in eastern Cuba.
In December 1998, the Support Group for the
Independent Cooperatives was formally
established.
In April 1999, it received a $24,000
grant from NED to support its mission of
mobilizing additional support for ANAIC.
NED has been releasing grant funds on a
reimbursement basis pending final issuance by
the IRS of the 501(c)3 status for the Support
Group. In
late April, the Support Group identified ACDI/VOCA
as a potential appropriate external partner for
ANAIC. On
April 26, 1999, the ANAIC executive director in
Cuba wrote to ACDI/VOCA requesting the
assistance reflected in this project proposal
and designating the Support Group for the
Independent Cooperatives as the liaison for
purposes of implementing the project (copy of
letter attached in the annex). On May 5, an older Miami-based exile group, the Confederación
Campesina de Cuba, wrote to ACDI/VOCA endorsing
the initiative of ANAIC and the Support Group
for the Independent Cooperatives.
VI.
ACDI/VOCA
ACDI/VOCA was created through the consolidation
of two private nonprofit organizations
established more than 30 years ago by the U.S.
agricultural cooperative community, Agricultural
Cooperative Development International and
Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance.
ACDI/VOCA is owned and supported by the
largest grower-owned supply and processing
cooperatives and farm credit banks in the United
States. ACDI/VOCA
receives funding from USAID, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, host country governments, the
World Bank, regional development banks like the
Inter-American Development Bank, and from trade
associations.
ACDI/VOCA’s mission is to identify and open
economic opportunities for farmers and other
entrepreneurs worldwide by promoting democratic
principles and market liberalization, building
international cooperative partnerships, and
encouraging sound management of natural
resources.
It has worked in 110 countries and
currently has operations in over 30.
Programs and core competencies include:
·
Cooperative and producer association
development;
·
Agricultural production, processing and
marketing systems;
·
International agribusiness partnerships;
·
Rural financial institution development;
·
Natural resource management; and,
·
Food for development.
While
it is unlikely that ANAIC will be calling upon
the full range of ACDI/VOCA competencies during
the 12-month period of this project, it is
certain that a Cuba in transition will require
external assistance and expertise in all of
these areas.
ACDI/VOCA is currently working at the private
enterprise level in 18 previously communist
countries located in the former Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe.
Developing a vibrant agricultural sector
is critical for these countries' transition to
market economies.
Since 1990, ACDI/VOCA has played a
pivotal role in efforts to develop a strong,
private agricultural sector by providing
technical assistance to nascent private
cooperatives, agribusinesses and
microenterprises in transitional economies.
Strengthening small and medium rural
enterprises enables them to compete with the
large-scale state farming systems that continue
to threaten the development of private
agribusiness.
Over 2,000 senior-level volunteers have provided
essential training on cooperative development,
business management, privatization of collective
farms, and agricultural production, processing
and marketing to thousands of people.
Technical assistance has been vital for
supporting the development of an independent
agricultural sector, which is hampered by lack
of liquidity, technical assistance, affordable
credit and land codes.
ACDI/VOCA is a member of the International
Cooperative Alliance (ICA) and has high-level
contacts that would be useful for ANAIC, both in
its campaign to solicit additional international
support and in its objective of receiving
international recognition as an NGO representing
the independent farm sector in Cuba.
The ICA is a non-governmental organization
founded in Manchester, England in 1895. Its
members are national and international
cooperative organizations including agriculture,
banking, energy, industrial, insurance,
fisheries, housing, tourism and consumer
services. ICA has more than 230 member
organizations from over 100 countries,
representing more than 730 million individuals
worldwide.
In 1946, the ICA was one of the first
non-governmental organizations to be accorded
United Nations Consultative Status.
It is one of the forty-one organizations
holding Category 1 Consultative Status with the
UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
The head office of the ICA is located in Geneva,
Switzerland. ICA’s Development Program is
coordinated by the development department in
Geneva and implemented through the regional
offices. Regional offices have been established
for East, West, Central and Southern Africa,
Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the
Caribbean.
ACDI/VOCA has close relations with the current
ICA president, Dr. Roberto Rodrigues, a
Brazilian who was elected president in 1997.
The current chair of the ICA's
Agricultural Committee is Dejandir Dalpasquale,
who is the current president of the Organization
of Cooperatives of Brazil (OCB) as well as
president of the Organization of Cooperatives of
the Americas (OCA). OCB is ACDI/VOCA’s
principal partner organization in its
cooperative development program in Brazil.
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VII.
Project Description
A. Project
Goal
Through this project ACDI/VOCA aims to assist
ANAIC to achieve its goal of improving the welfare of
Cuban farmers through individual initiative, free
association and independence from state controls of
production and marketing decisions.
B.
Objectives/Outcomes
1. Increase
the Institutional Capacity of ANAIC and its Member
Cooperatives
ANAIC
needs to be able to properly account for external
assistance from various prospective sources and to
properly control funds and other resources flowing to
and from individual members and cooperatives.
In addition to demonstrating proper fiscal
control, ANAIC needs to assist its individual and
cooperative members establish production cost
accounting systems that will help guide them in making
production and marketing decisions that will increase
returns to farmers.
Proper cost accounting systems will also be
necessary in order to demonstrate to potential members
and outside observers that self-management by
independent Cuban farmers and cooperatives results in
increased returns to the farmers.
To support this objective, the project will provide
ANAIC and its member cooperatives necessary office
equipment, such as computers, television, VCR and
appropriate software, videos and relevant
informational materials. Fruitful technical exchanges
will occur through visits to ANAIC and its members
from highly qualified volunteer experts, and from the
opportunity for key ANAIC members or staff to visit
private agricultural organizations abroad.
2.
Assist Independent Cooperatives to Incorporate
Lessons Learned in Cooperative Management from the
International Experience
While
some of the internal practices of the official
agricultural production cooperatives may have
relevance to the independent cooperatives, the
independent cooperatives lack contemporary Cuban
models of mature, self-managed, democratically
operated agricultural cooperatives.
The project therefore will offer leaders and
members of the independent cooperatives exchange
opportunities with cooperativists in other countries,
structured training opportunities outside Cuba, and
informational materials on co-op management.
3. Increase ANAIC
Membership and the Number of Functioning Independent
Agricultural Cooperatives
Recent Cuban government estimates place the number
of “independent” farmers nominally members of
government-managed CCSs at around 164,000.
There do not appear to be any recent government
figures on the number of independent farmers not
associated with CCSs.
There are presently two functioning independent
cooperatives, Transición in Santiago province and
Progreso I in Guantánamo province, consisting of 25
farm families. Some
50 independent farmers are affiliated with ANAIC, but
not with a functioning cooperative.
A group of farmers in Havana province
established a co-op named Progreso II, but it has not
initiated operations pending assistance, which ANAIC
has not yet been in a position to provide.
Farmers in half a dozen other localities
throughout Cuba have been in contact with ANAIC and
have expressed interest in affiliation, either as
independent farmers or as potential independent
cooperatives. ANAIC
has not been able to proceed with these groups due to
resource constraints.
To expand the movement, ANAIC needs the resources to
send its representatives to the communities interested
in affiliation, bring potential affiliates to the
existing cooperatives, and communicate with and
distribute informational materials to potential and
existing members.
4. Demonstrate
Increases in the Welfare of ANAIC Farm Families
ANAIC
and independent journalists in Cuba report evidence of
increased farm earnings and consumption at the
Progresso II and Transición cooperatives resulting
from more efficient use of resources, higher yields,
and the sale of produce at prices more favorable those
obtained from obligatory sales to the state.
The success of ANAIC will depend not only on its
ability to help its member families improve their own
conditions, but also on its ability to demonstrate
this to potential members.
ACDI/VOCA will work with ANAIC to develop
appropriate information systems to quantify
year-to-year changes in beneficiary productivity and
earnings and to provide comparative analyses between
participating farmers and non-ANAIC farmers of various
categories.
5.
Increase
International Assistance/Recognition for the
Independent
Agricultural Sector
ANAIC
has initiated a campaign of seeking international
support. In
tandem with the Support Group for the Independent
Cooperatives in Miami, ACDI/VOCA will utilize its
network of international contacts to disseminate
information on the independent cooperatives and
farmers and to promote additional international
support for ANAIC.
In selecting the third country technical
advisors that will visit ANAIC under the project and
in selecting third country destinations for
observational travel by ANAIC members, consideration
will be given to using these trips to bolster
international support.
ACDI/VOCA will also seek to support the
recognition of ANAIC by and membership in the
International Cooperative Alliance.
6.
Positioning for Future Relations Between U.S.
Agricultural Interests and Cuban Farmers
Over
the long term and beyond the period of this project,
ACDI/VOCA hopes to serve as a vehicle to foster
understanding and mutually beneficial commercial
relationships between Cuban farmers and agricultural
interests in the U.S., as it has done throughout the
world. Travel
by ANAIC farmers to the U.S. and travel by U.S.
farmers to ANAIC farms may be problematical during the
project, but will be undertaken on a modest scale if
conditions permit.
At a minimum, information on agriculture and
farmer organizations in the U.S., which may be
relevant to the needs and interests of ANAIC farmers,
will be provided.
Similarly, to the extent that there are
particular U.S. agricultural inputs that are of
interest to ANAIC farmers and to the extent it is
feasible to deliver such inputs to ANAIC, the project
will do so.
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