A Visit to One of Cuba's Democratic Sugar Cane Cooperatives by Bill Caspary, with input from Mike Howard IIS Conference members travelled southwest from Havana to the rural town of Melena del Sur near the opposite coast, where they visited a pioneering sugar cane cooperative. Governance of the cooperative, as far as we could tell, is thoroughly democratic. All members attend monthly meetings to discuss and vote on decisions about agricultural production and work organization.
Officers make short term implementation decisions between meetings.
The thoughts of everyone go into finding a solution, which results in a better idea, while in the state enterprises, only one person, the manager, does the thinking. Since each worker feels responsible for the success of their decisions, the ideas are carried out more effectively. Co-op members emphasized that it was the mutual support and high morale of the members that got them through the crisis following the withdrawal of support from Russia. Before 1993, technology dominated Cuban sugar cane growing, making it dependent on imported fuel, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. A crisis in sugar cane production ensued.