1. Introduction 

The climate crisis is a summons to restructure the human economy toward harmonization with environmental values. As lawmakers and economists scramble to correct the course of an increasingly globalized market economy, they must examine the successes and failures of alternative market and governance structures in order to synthesize the next system.1 Leaving aside the contentious history between the United States and Cuba, as well as the various issues of international law, moral law, and economic sanctions this history raises,2this paper begins by examining regulation of Cuban working lands and agricultural markets, as well as Vermont’s climate economy initiative. Turning to economic theory, this paper posits the environmental crisis as a byproduct of the phenomena which Marx labelled “alienation” and “exploitation” resulting from obscured chains of commerce. This paper ends with a synthesis of history and theory, proposing a Vermont working lands cooperative corporation modeled after Cuban usufructuary traditions and American regulated public utility monopolies, with agricultural market adaptations better suited to the Vermont economy. By creating a regulated working lands public utility, Vermont can liberate the people and the land from chains of commerce that drive socio-ecological exploitation, and timely respond to the climate crisis by dramatically increasing carbon sequestration and reducing production and consumption costs. 

2. Context: Cuban Agricultural Land Use and Markets 

After the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, Cuba entered a period of economic reform. This reform prioritized sectors including production agriculture, energy, mineral extraction, and major infrastructure projects.3 Castro ushered in “a period of agricultural rehabilitation by prioritizing domestic food production without imported chemical inputs,” and began promoting organic agriculture across the island.4 More recent economic reforms focused on diversification of agriculture, reorganization of enterprises, research and development in renewables and sustainability, and non-state property management.5 Currently there are three modalities for Cuban enterprise: state-run, private sector, and public-private partnership.6In 2011, private sector enterprise accounted for approximately 18% of Cuba’s gross national income, but this figure declined under Raul Castro and continues to fall under Miguel Diaz-Canel.7 Many public-private partnerships are organized as cooperatives, and treated as public entities in Cuba.8 

Turning to the agricultural sector, the Cuban government maintains strict control over land-use planning, integrating such planning into annual national economic plans. “From the broader strategies, planners adopt territorial and urban land-use plans that are regulations that set forth legally binding requirements for the allocation and use of lands within specific geographic areas.”9In the early 60s, “Cuban leadership assumed control over agricultural planning, distribution of farm supplies and food, harvest quotas, and exportation,” with the State controlling 80% of arable lands.10 

Because of centralized land-use planning and the changing demands it entails, Cubans have no right to own farmland outright.11In 1993, “the Cuban government converted 80% of State farms into ‘basic units of cooperative production,’ which are run as worker-owned enterprises.”12 Farmers do not own the land. Instead they are granted indefinite usufructuary rights free of charge, but conditioned on subsequent outputs—namely, the ability to produce a quota determined by the Ministry of Agriculture.13 

In addition to determining harvest quotas, the Cuban government largely controls distribution of farm supplies, and directs implementation of agricultural technologies and methodologies to ensure particular economic outcomes.14 After a long history of trade embargoes highlighted the island’s dependency on foreign diesel, Cuba has been exploring renewable energy sources to attain energy self-determination.15 More recently, Cuba began exploring rural microgrid applications for biodigesters.16 Cuba’s climate provides conditions for maximal biomass growth,17 with sugar and hog farms producing many outputs that provide opportunity to convert waste and liability into new resources, such as biogas and finished compost. 

These centrally-directed economic mandates often intersect with agricultural methodologies to create de facto environmental restrictions, leading to positive socio-ecological outcomes. For instance, Cuba’s National Urban Agricultural Program “promotes a holistic relationship with the environment, minimizing and prohibiting the use of external chemical inputs.”18 This approach minimizes dependence on external sources of fertility, while protecting and promoting agro-ecological practices which may otherwise be threatened by globalization and industrialization.19 Cuban leadership perceives increased trade with U.S. industrial agricultural businesses as a threat, under suspicion that opening the agricultural market “may entice a new policy of increased short-term production, at environmental and socio-economic costs.”20 

Centralized control of the means of production allows Cuba to ensure positive outcomes in many ways. “Having ‘strong thumbs’ allows the government to mobilize large numbers of people to carry out homogeneous, routinized, and repetitive tasks that require little if any variation, initiative, or improvisation to adapt to specific conditions and unexpected circumstances at the local level.”21 When a model hog farm has proven that biodigesters can reduce methane emissions, improve water and soil quality, and reduce energy poverty, the Cuban government can mandate implementation on a large scale overnight. 

However, this centralized control is not without its drawbacks. In many instances, usufructuary land grants and directed production quotas do not specify the price the government will pay for products grown.22 Cooperative and private sector farms are doubly disadvantaged, as they are payed less for the same product, and payment on their contracts is often delayed.23 Additionally, private farmers must abide by different rules, such as prohibitions against delivering goods “directly to the urban markets and consumers [which] often results in a waste of scarce transportation and energy resources.”24 The private and cooperative sectors have little recourse to secure equitable outcomes, as most of their surplus is appropriated for the nation as a whole.25 

Centralized control often slows broader adaptation to new and local conditions as well. Castro’s tradition of micromanagement has a tendency to stultify local initiative for fear of political reprisal.26 Between 1998 and 2007, the total amount of cultivated land fell by 33 percent, and in 2008 the Cuban government reported “that 50 percent of agricultural land in Cuba was unutilized or underexploited.”27 This overemphasis on controlling production from the center slows the Cuban economy’s responsiveness to local conditions: 

“The Cuban economy’s bureaucratic centralized administration, lack of capital, and lack of nimble ‘fingers’ prevent it from addressing issues of variety, size, design, and taste in consumer goods, and from acquiring the precision required for timely coordination of complicated production and distribution processes in all modern economic sectors. These major systemic flaws are most strikingly evident in agriculture, which given the vagaries of climate and local conditions, is far more ‘irregular’ and requires more local initiative, intensive care, and individual motivation than the relatively homogeneous conditions prevailing in industrial production.”28 

Because the Cuban people lack democratic feedback mechanism, they are unable to hold government economic planners accountable,29 nor can they provide crucial information which can only be learned “on the ground.” 

3. Context: Vermont’s Climate Change Economy 

The United States has several programs that semi-socialize the food system as it stands.30 These include things like food stamps, tax exemptions for agricultural lands and farmers’ income, conservation easements, crop insurance, subsidies, and more. With conservation easements, various agencies of agriculture maintain oversight “to guarantee that agricultural lands are kept in tact and operational” through permitting or mitigation.31 However, most of these subsidies “do not distinguish between organic and industrial farms, nor do they preserve a certain type of farming practice, like organic farming, in perpetuity.”32 In Vermont, the Legislature is promoting a climate smart economy through the Vermont Climate Change Economy Council (VCCEC). VCCEC sees Vermont ““as an incubator of innovation and a laboratory to test new business ideas.”33 VCCEC aims to encourage “a dynamic and diverse economy that advances efficiency, clean energy generation… the wise use and reuse of resources, and a strong working lands foundation,” in order to respond to climate change and build long-term economic competitiveness.34 VCCEC’s strategic practices have included identifying growth opportunities by advancing key business clusters and economic sectors; building a sense of unity to respond to climate change; celebrating Vermont innovation and green business leadership; and expanding “Vermont’s economic brand around climate change solutions to retain and attract youth and creative entrepreneurs to locate throughout the state.”35 

VCCEC is also cultivating green businesses through the Climate Economy Network Development Initiative (CENDI). CENDI is providing microgrants for new and early stage business enterprise development; providing research and development grants to private sector businesses that are developing new business models in the sector; leveraging additional business opportunities through targeted grant investments in supply chain clusters and private sector infrastructure; and identifying barriers and impediments to business development and advocate for change to support the establishment and growth of climate economy businesses and entrepreneurs.36 

As it stands, Vermont’s food system thrives off worker and consumer cooperatives, and farmers markets.37 However, Vermont has a long history of private ownership of working lands. A worker-owned cooperative corporation that held working lands in perpetuity would enable a shift toward a more ecological agriculture, while preserving the historic private ownership of such lands in perpetuity. 

4. Theory: Alienation Yields Socio-Ecological Exploitation 

Marx’s theory of alienation states that socio-economic relationships are obfuscated by chains of commerce. “When consumers are separated from producers, purchase decisions are based solely on price and use values, without considering conditions of labor, exploitation or other societal concerns.”38 As Courtney Barnett succinctly puts it, “if you can’t see me, I can’t see you.”39 For instance, consider the agricultural sector. When consumers go to the market, they are unaware of the true costs of the agricultural products they purchase. Even labels like “organic” lose their power to ensure particular production methodologies as large agribusiness slides into the category through lobbying efforts.40 As neoliberal economic models drive the shift toward monoculture, local food systems are destroyed41 by the demand for cheap, uniform commodities destined for some place other than “here.” 

“Agricultural commodification can also lead to socio-economic consequences.”42 As agribusiness consolidates and effectively monopolizes sectors of “organic” production, small or mid-sized organic farms must compete with multinational conglomerates in the market, or attempt to resist takeovers.43 As the neoliberal market continues to drive down prices, workers and former owners are likely made to bear the costs of production personally through stagnating wages, unsafe conditions, and bearing undue financial or legal liability.44 This concentrates wealth into fewer and fewer hands. While shareholders are enriched, other stakeholders (such as the workers, the local consumers, and the ecosystems) are exploited. Incentives to care for environmental consequences are obscured by chains of commerce because shareholders do not see or appreciate what exploitation means for the local. 

This is not an unavoidable outcome of the food system. “When food systems become localized, chains of commerce are eliminated and social conditions of production are more likely to be understood and considered by the consumer prior to purchase.”45If consumers know the farmers that manage Hurricane Flats farm down the road, and swim in the river that runs alongside it, they are more likely to know whether these farmers are financially well, and whether they use sustainable or regenerative production methods. When organic agriculture is supported by localized market systems, it helps “to balance environmental consequences, economic inequity, and human rights violations of industrialized food systems in global trade,”46 by providing democratic and participatory structures of governance.47 

Worker-owned cooperative corporations are one such structure that enables democratic governance of work. Unlike “business as usual,” where capital-holders seek to extract value from laborers, “a worker cooperative provides for both democratic ownership of the workplace, with each worker holding an equal interest in the business, and democratic governance, with each worker able to cast an equal vote in key decisions.“48 Because workers are empowered to govern their work place, they are able to control distribution of the benefits of their labor—namely, capital and equity. This empowers them to play a part in democratic management of the economy at large,49 while potentially providing collective bargaining mechanisms that secure more equitable prices in the market. 

5. Synthesis: A Cooperative Working Lands Regulated Public Utility 

In order to harmonize Vermont’s producer and consumer interests with environmental values, Vermont should create a cooperative working lands regulated public utility. This cooperative should be structured as a parent cooperative, which acquires workings lands throughout the state. The parent cooperative is wholly owned by the farmers, ranchers, and foresters who operate subsidiary corporations that lease the working lands. By consolidating working lands under a public utility, the state can mandate implementation of standards, eliminate barriers to entry for eco-entrepreneurs, and achieve integration efficiencies unavailable to stand-alone operations. By creating such a public utility, Vermont can ensure land is managed consistent with criteria negotiated democratically between the state, which represents Vermont consumers, and the parent, which represents the workers. 

Turning to implementation of standards, Vermont or the cooperative (“either”) can mandate certain methodologies and practices for working lands that yield positive environmental outcomes. For instance, as was the case with Cuban hog farms, either could require that farms source energy from biogas emissions resulting from existing operations. This would reduce methane emissions while also reducing operational costs and peak load on the grid. Additionally, either could require no-till systems that increase carbon sequestration, or exemplary forestry systems that increase harvest yield and carbon sequestration, as well as improving wildlife habitat.50 Either could ban industrial fertilizers, promoting fertility sovereignty while reducing financial outflows and improving water quality. 

Additionally, Vermont could mandate certain outcomes through a regulated working lands public utility.51 “One of the most important components of sustainable agriculture is the structure of food systems—local production and consumption versus export-based systems.”52 These local markets require strong institutional support, which a parent cooperative could provide. These mandates could take the form of quotas for certain staples, ensuring Vermont is relatively food self-sufficient. Additionally, it would streamline land-use decision-making, allowing Vermont and the cooperative to identify critical areas for the provision of ecosystem services. 

The cooperative would work to eliminate barriers to entry for new working lands entrepreneurs in many ways. First, the cooperative could permanently remove working lands from the speculative real estate market. This would not only work as a de facto conservation easement (potentially allowing the cooperative to reap related tax benefits), it would also eliminate the need of new entrepreneurs to finance land acquisition through private mortgages. While the working lands would be held by the parent cooperative, the workers own the parent. This would allow them to build equity over time through ownership, in addition to enabling other lease-agreement structures that simulate traditional mortgages. 

“Knowledge sharing and information exchange are critical to bolstering small-farm resiliency, localized food systems, and conservation. Fostering relationships that revere environmental stewardship and community growth is fundamental to the success of agrarian policies.”53 The cooperative could serve as that hub for networking among co-owners, and provide institutional memory that bridges gaps between working land subsidiaries across time. In addition, a cooperative would enable labor sharing and apprenticeships, which bolster local agricultural markets54 while driving down costs of subsidiary operations and training new entrepreneurs in their specific field or across the agricultural supply chain. 

Finally, a working lands cooperative would enable the cooperative to achieve integration efficiencies which stand-alone operations may not be able to replicate. First, the cooperative could horizontally integrate by acquiring working lands across the state. By uniting these operations under a single legal entity with private sector incentives to innovate, the cooperative would necessarily organize to achieve economies of scale. This could include equipment sharing, insurance, labor sharing, and collective bargaining with Vermont. The cooperative could attain certain economies of scope as well by providing logistical infrastructure that coordinates activities between diverse operations among subsidiaries. The cooperative and Vermont could further negotiate regarding the extent to which the cooperative could vertically integrate. Vermont consumers may benefit from an agricultural supply chain that consolidates production, processing, delivery, and market making activities under a single monopoly, constrained by public utility regulation. 

6. Conclusion 

Vermont can take lessons from usufructuary traditions and the regulated public utility history to make a dramatic difference in the fight against climate change. By creating a cooperative working lands public utility, Vermont can accelerate climate action, eliminate barriers to entry for new farmers, promote economic democracy, and create a model for other states. A cooperative public utility would allow the state to use its “strong thumbs” through regulation, while allowing “nimble fingers” to chase private incentives to innovate. By localizing working lands production and consumption, Vermont can break chains of commerce that obscure socio-ecological conditions, while building a stronger climate-smart local economy. 

decentralize without losing control,  

centralize without hindering initiative55 

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1 “Theories of markets that leave out government—or conceptions of politics in which the economy is exogenous—are inherently limited and unbalanced. They do not tell us much about the relationships between the form of government and the fortunes of the economy or adequately explain why some societies are rich and others are poor.” Mancur Olson, “Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships,” 2000. Pp. xxv-xxvi.

2 See Digna B. French, “Economic Sanctions Imposed by the United States Against Cuba: The Thirty-nine Year Embargo Culminating with the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996.” 

3 Commercial Law in Cuba lecture. 

4 Gregory A. Berry, “Growing with Integrity: Methods and Knowledge-Sharing to Bolster Sustainable Organic Agricultural Markets in Cuba and Vermont.” p. 4.

5 Cuban Economy and Society in the 21st Century lecture. 

6 Commercial Law in Cuba lecture. 

7 Caroline Kuritzkes, “The End of Cuba’s Entrepreneurship Boom,” July 15, 2019. 

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/15/the-end-of-cubas-entrepreneurship-boom/ 

8 Commercial Law in Cuba lecture. 

9 Daniel J. Whittle et al, “International Tourism and Protection of Cuba’s Coastal and Marine Environments,” 2003. p. 39. 10 Gregory A. Berry, “Growing with Integrity: Methods and Knowledge-Sharing to Bolster Sustainable Organic Agricultural Markets in Cuba and Vermont.” p. 4. 

11 Decree Law No. 36 (1982). 

12 Gregory A. Berry, “Growing with Integrity: Methods and Knowledge-Sharing to Bolster Sustainable Organic Agricultural Markets in Cuba and Vermont.” p. 4. 

13 Decree Law No. 125 (1991). 

14 E.g. Finca Marta’s honey extractor trailer grant.

15 Cuba Renewable Energy Group lecture. 

16 Ibid. 

17 Ibid. 

18 Gregory A. Berry, “Growing with Integrity: Methods and Knowledge-Sharing to Bolster Sustainable Organic Agricultural Markets in Cuba and Vermont.” p. 8. 

19 Id. at 2. 

20 Id. at 5. 

21 Samuel Farber, “Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment,” p. 65. 

22 1993 Ministry of Agriculture Resolution No. 357-93. 

23 Samuel Farber, “Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment,” p. 60.

24 Samuel Farber, “Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment,” p. 64. 

25 ”This bureaucratic ruling class appropriates the economic surplus without any institutional constraints by unions or any other independent popular organizations.” Id. at 52. 

26 Id. at 56. 

27 Id. at 63. 

28 Id. at 65. 

29 Id. at 54. 

30 Id. at 9. 

31 Gregory A. Berry, “Growing with Integrity: Methods and Knowledge-Sharing to Bolster Sustainable Organic Agricultural Markets in Cuba and Vermont.” p. 10.

32 Ibid. 

33 Vermont Climate Change Economy Council, “Progress for Vermont: Report and Action Plan,” 2016. P. 8. 34 Ibid. 

35 Id. at 8-9. 

36 Id. at 25. 

37 Gregory A. Berry, “Growing with Integrity: Methods and Knowledge-Sharing to Bolster Sustainable Organic Agricultural Markets in Cuba and Vermont.” p. 3. 

38 Id. at 13.

39 Courtney Barnett, “Dead Fox.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njb3JTZ1ibY (last accessed 12/19/19). 40 “When a group that constitutes only a narrow segment of the income-earning capacity of a society is able to act collectively, its main incentive is to redistribute to itself through lobbying and price fixing and to continue such activities even when the losses to the society are large in relation to the amount the group obtains through its distributional struggle.” Mancur Olson, “Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships,” 2000. p. 197. 

41 Gregory A. Berry, “Growing with Integrity: Methods and Knowledge-Sharing to Bolster Sustainable Organic Agricultural Markets in Cuba and Vermont.” p. 12. 

42 Ibid. 

43 Id. at 14. 

44 For an example, consider Tyson’s treatment of poultry farmers. See Alison Moodie, “Fowl Play: The Chicken Farmers Being Bullied by Big Poultry.” 22 April 2017. 

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/apr/22/chicken-farmers-big-poultry-rules (last accessed 12/19/19). 

45 Gregory A. Berry, “Growing with Integrity: Methods and Knowledge-Sharing to Bolster Sustainable Organic Agricultural Markets in Cuba and Vermont.” p. 13.

46 Id. at 3. 

47 Id. at 16. 

48 https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/worker-cooperatives (last accessed 12/18/19). 

49 Ibid. 

50 “Exemplary Forestry is a forest management approach created by New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) that prioritizes forests’ long-term health and outlines the highest standards of sustainability currently available to the region’s forest owners. In addition to protecting forests and their ecosystem services, Exemplary Forestry is designed to accomplish three goals: enhance the role forests can play to mitigate climate change, improve wildlife habitat, and grow more and better-quality wood.” 

https://newenglandforestry.org/learn/initiatives/exemplary-forestry/ (last accessed 12/18/19).

51 Gregory A. Berry, “Growing with Integrity: Methods and Knowledge-Sharing to Bolster Sustainable Organic Agricultural Markets in Cuba and Vermont.” p. 16. 

52 Ibid. 

53 “Vermont legislators can model after Cuba to acquire and lease usufructuary organic parcels at affordable rates. Identifying and zoning parcels of organic farmland can help meet the basic food needs of current and future generations.” Id. at 14.

54 Id. at 15. 

55 Central tenet of Cuba’s National Urban Agriculture Program.