Larger Plots of Land Being Transferred to Campesinos
HAVANA TIMES — The Cuban executive order concerning the transfer of user rights to campesinos for the working of state-owned lands has increased the amount of property that each farmer can work to 166 acres, reported Granma newspaper on Tuesday.
The modifications in the law include the possibility of building housing on these properties for the farmers and their families as well as for transferring land for forestry and fruit production, in addition to existing agricultural purposes.
To benefit from the new law, producers must already possess rights to land, maintain these properties in full production, be linked to some kind of state farm or cooperative, and fulfill their legal and contractual obligations, highlighted the Granma article.
The new rules, which will come into force this December, does not change the period of use granted, which remains at only 10 years for individuals despite calls by producers to extend the contract period.
This is miserable. Farmers and ranchers need to own their own lands, and be able to run them according to sound business practices. The only thing keeping them from being able to do so in Cuba is the fallacious Marxian dogma that private land ownership is contrary to socialism. It isn’t!
The continuation of usufruct means that the agricultural sector will continue to under perform. Food will continue to be purchased from places like the US at world prices, and the economy will continue to hemorrhage vital resources.
Farmers and ranches are the highly productive, laboring small bourgeoisie–a working class. They are the ally of the socialist proletariat and intelligentsia, not their foe. But Cuban sectarianism is misunderstanding them and wasting them as an ally, and undermining socialist state power.