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than a departure from it. Cuban agriculture maintains its opposition to
wage labor and the primacy of economic considerations (also see Enriquez
2004). Moreover, the move toward local land management aligns with
the concepts of food sovereignty and food justice.
As in the United States, Cuba's organic farming movement consists of
more than just farmers. The Cuban Organic Farming Association was
developed during the Agrarian University of Havana's First National
Conference on Organic Agriculture, and seeks to develop consciousness,
projects, research, teaching and networking on the topic of organic agri-
culture. The university offers MA and PhD programs in agroecology, as
well as a popular correspondence course offering certifi cation to national
farmers. In 1995, the fi rst Cuban delegation visited Vicente Guerro to
participate in a Campesino a Campesino workshop, and Mexican pro-
motores led a workshop in Havana the following year. Since then, Cuba's
National Association of Small Farmers has become a strong supporter
of the Campesino a Campesino movement, and thousands of small
farmers have participated in their agroecology trainings. This demon-
strates the practice of transnational alliances between market-based,
state-based, and social movement advocacy for food sovereignty.
In his study of the Cuban organic farming movement, Funes (2002,
22) declares that its “principles run counter to the vicious globalization
promoted by neo-liberalism.” Despite, or perhaps due to its forced mar-
ginalization by the global economic system, Cuba's state policies have
established and supported a system of organic agriculture that promotes
food sovereignty and human and ecological health. Such an approach,
supporters claim, has been economically solvent, but not motivated by
profi t (Levins 2002). However, recent murmurings from both the U.S.
and Cuban governments suggest that the end of the embargo may be
within sight. Whether such a political realignment pushes Cuban agri-
culture toward the neoliberal, market-dominated approaches that activ-
ists see as obstacles to their food sovereignty remains to be seen.
In the United States, government policies subsidizing industrial farming
result in processed foods being signifi cantly cheaper than local produce,
often confi ning sustainable agriculture to an elite niche market. This
presents a challenge to the U.S. food justice movement, which must work
to make such produce both available and affordable to low-income com-
munities and communities of color, while also seeking to provide ade-
quate returns for struggling farmers. In Belo Horizonte and Cuba, on
the other hand, government policies promote sustainable agriculture,
enabling locally grown produce to become the basis of popular diets.
