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March 29, 2022
In Puerto Rico, sustainable agriculture practices are helping residents regain food sovereignty and break free from the roots of colonialism. Investing and supporting farmers cultivating these techniques will help Puerto Ricans reduce their dependence on foreign imports, help make food systems more resilient to extreme weather, bolster the local economy, and provide more options for a healthy diet. Dan and EESI Communications Associate Alison Davis talk about these topics and more with Dr. Gladys Gonzalez Martinez, professor at the University of Puerto Rico and Dr. Katia Avilés-Vázquez, the executive director of the Institute for Research and Education in Agroecology.
Show notes:
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Episode Transcript
Dan Bresette: Hello and welcome to The Climate Conversation. I'm Dan Bresette, Executive Director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. And with me is a new voice to the podcast, Alison Davis. Alison is a communications associate with us here at EESI and making her first appearance on The Climate Conversation. Alison, great to have you join me.
Alison Davis: Hi, Dan, I'm excited to be hosting the podcast with you. We've been working hard behind the scenes to publish a new five article series on sustainable agriculture. So far, we've published the first two articles on cover crops and agroforestry. The other three articles will cover no till agriculture, soil amendments and livestock grazing, and will be published through the end of April. You can read all of these articles at eesi.org/sustainable agriculture. We're exploring some of the topics discussed in articles in this episode. To do that, we will be going on a journey to Puerto Rico.
Dan: That's right. Today we're going to be talking about the agroecology movement, which is quite literally groundbreaking. That has been gaining momentum on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico and aftermath of Hurricane Maria. But this movement isn't solely about farming. It's also about self-sufficiency, and the desire of Puerto Ricans to break free from the roots of colonialism. We'll talk more about the social and political implications later. But let's start by laying out first what agroecology actually is.
Alison: Well, agroecology is a community-based approach to sustainable food systems. Oftentimes, people talk about sustainable agriculture by proposing adjustments to the model of industrial agriculture. And that's an incredibly limiting framework right from the start. With agroecology however, there's a lot more potential in terms of sustainability because you're starting with more traditional, typically indigenous knowledge that is much less resource intensive, and much more specific to the particular region.
Dan: To paraphrase the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, agroecology is a holistic approach that incorporates natural systems and the practice of sustainable agriculture. It seeks to find ways that plants, animals and humans and the environment can work together and on top of that, agroecology addresses the need for equitable food systems by reducing rural poverty rates and making locally produced food more available and affordable.
Alison: Puerto Ricans are almost entirely reliant on imports for the food, even though the island is very well suited for farming because of its warm climate, arable land and rich biodiversity. In fact, agriculture was the pride of Puerto Rico for most of its history, but colonial rule under Spain and then the United States turned agriculture into a symbol of oppression. Now locals aspire to reclaim their ancestors’ agricultural roots. The movement to revive agroecological practices on the island is not only important for food security during times of crisis, but also for justice and equity. Women working in agroecology have been exposed to greater economic and educational opportunity, and now played a key role in combating Puerto Rico's crippling poverty race.
Dan: To get a better understanding of the historical connection between agroecology and food sovereignty, let's turn it over to Dr. Gladys Gonzalez Martinez, who is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology and director of the Entrepreneurship Center for Women in Puerto Rico's agriculture.
Gladys: During the 18th century, we had so much population growth that the national economy started to set. So agriculture was established to produce export products, not for local consumption. Just a little bit of subsistence agriculture, but our main products were sugarcane, coffee, and tobacco, to sell them to Europe, especially to Spain. July 25 of 1898 is an important date for us because that's the day that USA invaded Puerto Rico. So the island became a concession after the Spanish American War. After that, up to 1930, our economic history is known as a pre-modern period, and that was the start of capitalism. The U.S. corporations bought lands, buildings, assets and that was favored by the devaluation of the local currency, the Puerto Rico peso. Agriculture was still mainly big plantations dedicated to single cropping monoculture of sugarcane that were owned by absentee owners and destined to export to the United States. Puerto Rico at the time was called the poorhouse of the Caribbean. Starting in the mid-1940s. Puerto Ricans also migrated from rural areas to urban areas to work in factories, leaving agriculture shortage of labor. It is aggravated by the Jones Act, making prices higher. The Jones Act, which is the short title, goes back to 1920. To regulate maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports. It prevents foreign flagships from carrying cargo between the contiguous or Continental US and some noncontiguous parts of the US such as Puerto, Rico, Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska. Any foreign vessel can enter Puerto Rico’s ports, importing goods from all around the world, but goods between any two U.S. ports must be carried out by a vessel that has been built, crewed, owned, flagged, and operated by a U.S. shipping company. Various recent analysis have examined the Jones Act’s impact on Puerto Rico, and they have concluded that it imposes significant costs on Puerto Rico. There are also some estimates by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and by other institutions. All these reports show a dreadful economic reality for Puerto Rico. In terms of agriculture, it has increased the costs of production, since most of the inputs that we use in Puerto Rico's agriculture are imported. In terms of food security, it has increased the prices of agriculture products, which are input to agriculture and to the food industry in Puerto Rico. The Jones Act imposes higher feed prices therefore higher meat, egg, and milk prices at the consumer level. Therefore, agriculture is less competitive with the Jones Act as compared to other states and also to foreign countries. Agriculture has been perceived as a sector that shows no promise to potentiate economic development. Most of our food is imported. The number or the percentage, I cannot say because our agricultural statistics are outdated. And especially after Maria, I have some serious doubts about what is being published. Consumption of local production may be around 10, 12, 15%. Since our food is imported, and our prices are so high, due in part to the imposition of the Jones Act, people, especially people with low income levels, have to buy especially processed food, like canned food, because they cannot afford other fresh food, locally produced or even imported fresh food. We also have the problem that we cannot rely on shipments due to the natural events and the monopoly-like structure that our trade has. So the payment of the debt, the Jones Act, the realities of the natural disasters, have made food security a very important issue in Puerto Rico.
Dan: That brings us to September 2017, which was when Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico forcing ports to cut back or close operations and wiping out 80% of all crop value. It was the worst storm to hit the island in almost a century. Locals were essentially cut off from the rest of the world and left without food, drinkable water, electricity, and other essential resources to provide for themselves.
Alison: In the weeks and months that followed, it became clear that farms utilizing methods of agroecology were recovering more quickly than conventional farms. Experts estimate that if all the reserved agricultural land were developed and managed using agroecology practices, Puerto Rico could produce up to two-thirds of its own food. Such a transition will be absolutely vital moving forward, as the EPA has stated that rising temperatures in the ocean will likely increase the wind speeds and rainfall rates of future hurricanes in the region.
Dan: Let's turn back over to Dr. Gonzalez Martinez for more on modern day Puerto Rico and the effect that Maria has had on food systems there, as well as the benefits of sustainable agriculture in terms of public health.
Gladys: Many farmers decided to leave agriculture after Maria. According to the census, and that's the only official data that we can have, 2012, we had 13,000, let's say 13,000 farms. After Maria in 2018, we had 8000 farms. We got some help from Puerto Ricans leaving out of Puerto Rico, what we call Puerto Rican diaspora. They help us by sending food and also by sending seeds to Puerto Rico and then farmers could start to plant again. When I started working with women in agriculture back then in 2007, it was because I found out that even though some women were doing farming, and also they were doing ranching, they did not either identify themselves as farmers or entrepreneurs. Whenever asked about who owns the farm, who is the farmer, they said that it was a male figure in the family, they said it was the husband or the father or even the son. So I started working with women and I found out first that the government didn't keep statistics or data about women in agriculture. That was a fact. It was until the Census of Agriculture started collecting data by gender that I could find data. But in Puerto Rico, there was no data about women. So they did not have a face. And they did not have a voice in policymaking and policy implementation, because they actually, they did not exist. For the government, women did not exist in agriculture. So what I found out about these women when I started teaching them about entrepreneurship, and management, and all those things that they needed to know, to be successful, to have a successful business, is that they were very conscious of the issue of justice, justice for the people, justice for the community, justice for women, justice for the family. So they actually tended to favor agroecological, and even organic practices. But they didn't have the training. They didn't have the education. Some of them did, but not the majority. So I started bringing to the classroom faculty members that work with organic agriculture, and that work with agroecological practices, and they were very prone to incorporate those practices into their farms, into their activities. Why? Because I think that rather than talk about food security, we should talk to women and farmers in general, about food sovereignty or food independence. And that is their right, right? To define by ourselves, agricultural and food policies, and to have the right to produce and consume what we decide? What is our basic diet? When we talked to them about those concepts, they were very receptive. So I think that in my experience working with Puerto Rican farmers, especially with female farmers, the agroecological movement has found very productive ground. Now, there has been a rebirth of agriculture and especially women and young farmers are starting you know, there's a new generation of farmers in Puerto Rico, and I think that they will succeed.
Alison: It was fascinating to learn about the connections between Puerto Rico's history, agriculture and how it all influences life on the island today. But how are farmers working in this growing sustainable farming space? It's time to introduce our next guest, Dr. Katia Aviles Vasquez to tell us more.
Dan: Dr. Katia Aviles Vasquez is the executive director of the Institute for Research and Education in Agroecology. She holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied the cultural and political ecology of small-scale farmers in Puerto Rico, and in 2015, she received the EPA Environmental Champions Award. Since Hurricane Maria, she has focused her work on local capacity building securing more than $11 million for projects by and for Puerto Rico residents. Katia’s work and activism has been featured in outlets like Democracy Now and The Guardian. Most recently, she represented the Caribbean region at the U.N. Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development. Katia, welcome to The Climate Conversation.
Katia: Thank you for having me. Glad to be here.
Alison: Thank you for joining us. Let's begin by talking about agroecology as a climate solution. Studies increasingly show that climate change and biodiversity are inherently tied together and Puerto Rico's agroecology movement exhibits a unique understanding of this. How do farmers incorporate local biodiversity into the management of their crops and livestock? And how does this integrative approach make the farms more resilient to severe weather such as droughts, earthquakes or hurricanes?
Katia: I think the first thing to note is that agroecology is a science. So agroecology is defined by three things working in tandem, right, so we have the scientific research part, the practice the actual implementation part. And then of course, the justice part. And the part where I come from, to agroecology is from the science perspective. And one of the main things to consider is how agroecology as the research science helps us or looks to learn from natural ecosystems, and apply those principles into our agroecosystems or productive systems. And then from that, there is definitely, of course, the diversity that we have both in the Caribbean and then in this case in our crops. And I think that's really important. And I know that it's an issue that we're going to talk about later on. But the diversity within the agricultural production system or the agroecosystems, is supremely important for resilience and for surviving any type of extreme shock to the system. If something goes bad another thing can take it up. Farmers in Puerto Rico, and in most of Latin America, already use several of what would be called agroecological practices. The thing is that they don't necessarily name it that way. And that's the birth of the movement campesino a campesino, peasant to peasant, or farmer to farmer. Farmers use several tactics in their practices in order to manage their system. And a lot of them are to decrease dependency or decrease vulnerability because they are not waiting necessarily for chemical fertilizers, because they don't necessarily have a monoculture. They don't have fear of certain widespread plagues or pests. And I think one of the things that are agroecology brings to the table in particular when we take the justice issue for campesino a campesino, which is one of the learning strategies that La Via Campesina uses is that it helps us strategize, it helps us turn what could be only survival tactics into survival and thriving strategies. And I think the climate extremes that we experienced recently in Puerto Rico, for example, with Maria, we had a very strong hurricane. But even before Maria in 2014/15, and early ‘16, we had one of the worst, I mean, it was a bad drought year throughout the world. But it Puerto Rico it was one of our worst in, I believe it was the worst in a century. So we went from having one extreme drought to the other extreme in 2017. And then, of course, in 2019, we had the earthquakes, that also affected one of our primary production areas in the southwest. So the first line of defense is precisely that diversity of production. Those farmers that were able to have several different crops within their plot were the ones that were least impacted. All of them were affected, but least impacted. For example, conventional farmers after Maria had to throw away their milk, not necessarily because there was just because there was no way to get it out, there was no way to process it, there was no way to get it. And the problem with those particular farmers is that the only product that they had for sale was milk. So they were both throwing away milk, and having severe starvation and malnutrition problems after Maria, whereas that didn't necessarily happen with agroecological farmers. It also speaks to seed conservation and having access to our seed and preservation of the genetic material and the different localized varieties. I think we've grown accustomed and I think climate change is really teaching us that there is not a one size fits all solution and that life cannot be copyrighted, right. So having life copyrighted is a serious risk for everyone. And within the food system, everyone that eats food is in severe peril. So having access to seeds, and having localized seed production actually helps to be able to develop seeds that can resist drought conditions or flooding conditions. And that was another important part actually, farmers were more impacted in Puerto Rico because a lot of that seed production has been taken away from us because of the political system that we live in.
Dan: We would be remiss, perhaps if we tried to paint a picture of modern-day Puerto Rico, without discussing the Puerto Rico Oversight Management and Economic Stability Act, or PROMESA, which was passed by Congress the year before Hurricane Maria, and the goal was to restructure the territory’s $70 billion debt. What exactly is PROMESA? And how has it impacted the food system and ownership of farmland and Puerto Rico?
Katia: In short, very short version, when section 936 which was the tax exemption or incentive law, actually was taken out, our government started taking out bonds. I think it's important to make the distinction between the Puerto Rican people and the government elites that are currently in power. In order to make up for the difference in gross domestic product that was lost because of section 936 being eliminated, they started taking out a whole bunch of bonds and loans. Finally, it came to a head under the Obama administration. And obviously, those people that hold the bonds want to be paid, and our government has no way no way to pay, because those funds have been already expended and not invested in what they were supposed to be invested. Obama imposes the oversight board, which is an economic control board, that establishes how the Puerto Rico government is going to function for however long the board is in place. And they have the sovereign mandate over how we distribute our budget. And the Puerto Rican people have no representation, we didn't have representation with the U.S. government before. And now even whatever semblance of democracy we could say that we had by voting for government representatives is absolutely subsided and gone with PROMESA. The people, who were the ones that had the least to do with the debt and who were the ones that least used the funding that was taken out in loans are the ones that are being asked to sacrifice the most. And so that's a quick way to cheapen services. So we have worse public health, we have almost a choked public education system. What's been amazing, and one of the things that's the threat, specifically to agriculture, and to any island nation would be devastating, is that then land is the commodity. And construction, just planting cement and buildings everywhere becomes the economic engine of the economy. What's been happening in recent years is that they focused on this incredibly large scale, one-stop-shop type of mega project for construction. One of the main ones are solar, what are called solar farms. The dark side of the solar farms is that it continues centralizing the energy production system, and it is taking up a whole bunch of our most productive farmland. And if that were not enough, because it's not being constructed as something that's compatible with farmland or farming, because that is happening at such a speed and it is so right now economically incentivized, this is one of the fastest ways to make profit for those that are building these solar farms. We have farmers getting eviction notices and farmers getting letters saying we're not going to rent to you, because that's going to build a solar farm in the next five years. And those are the types of projects that are kind of like fast tracked through PROMESA. Unfortunately, if economy, if dollars and cents is your only goal, and it is not the wellbeing of your people, of your community. If it's not getting healthy food to everyone, then of course, these are the things that are going to go by the wayside. I think one thing that needs to be recognized is that agroecology in its full implementation, and when we're thinking about campesino a campesino as a practice when we're thinking about the science of it, and how we are currently living on an exploitation system that just wants to consume and grow and consume and grow, and the justice components, agroecology cannot fully be implemented in the current economic system that we have. So that's the first distinction that should be made. However, within the system that we're living in, agroecology is the only way that we have survived, and the only way that we can survive. So it is, it behooves us, it is to, to our survival as Caribbean islands to actually implement and continue spreading agroecology throughout the archipelago. And this is just not even spreading it just because it's a new thing, but also documenting the taxes that our farmers already were using and seeing, Okay, this one works really well, this one doesn't work as well. How do we teach it to the next farmer over? How do we adopt even more of these agroecological practices, understanding that for it to be fully implemented, then we would have a different system that doesn't depend on exploitation.
Alison: Thank you. I'd like to backtrack a little bit to what you were saying before about mitigating climate change versus survival. So what did the agroecology movement look like in Puerto Rico before Hurricane Maria, and how is it evolved in the years since?
Katia: I think what's important to note is that Hurricane Maria for most Puerto Ricans and even for quite a bit of the world, I don't know even if you were able to see the pictures, but Maria defoliated 90% of the trees in the island. So it was the first time that you were able to see our communities, to see where poverty it looked it was just stark right there in your face. And I think it did a similar thing to agroecology. Agroecology has been here for more than 30 years in terms of the use of the name and actually having an organization that organizes farmers focused on agroecology, but it had not gained visibility. And that's what Maria did when it when it defoliated when it lifted that veil, a lot of people saw that and we're like, oh, wow, we have people doing this. And that's amazing. They have crops one month after the hurricane and they actually have excess crops that they can give to their neighbors so that neighbors can eat. And that's actually what happened. That was that was something that was absolutely beautiful and gorgeous about the agroecological movement is that they were the first thing that happened was we need to engage back in the markets, not necessarily for the sale part with for the exchange part, we need to get food back in the hands of people, we have the food, the food is growing and getting our farms. And that wasn't happening in conventional farms as fast. The biggest jump has been since because farmers are now seeing we need to not only preserve these practices, we need to kind of double down and we need to have production communities, we need to have shorter distribution chains. And we need to make sure that we protect and maintain those markets in which the farmer directly sells to the customer. I think it went from being something organic to being something very intentional for most of our small-scale farmers.
Dan: Here at EESI, we are focused on what's happening sort of in the Capitol, the administration across the agencies. And I'm curious if there are U.S. federal policies that have either an especially positive or especially negative impact on farmers in Puerto Rico and I'm curious if you've thought about policy suggestions that might be out there that would help encourage sustainable agriculture practices in Puerto Rico.
Katia: When you think about shifting one policy, you have to think about all the repercussions and ramifications that it has throughout that system. To give you an idea and this was research done by Amy Guptill in the early 2000s. Amy Guptill found that the actual U.S. and then obviously, by extension, the Puerto Rican policy towards agriculture, what it did is that, because its focuses on increasing production, large scale farms, it actually led or created a cycle of poverty or poverty treadmill that farmers couldn't get out of. When you think about those policies, then we need to start thinking about scale. The fact that here, a small-scale farm, it's probably zero to 10 acres. So that's on average small for us. That's like, micro in the U.S. So when you're comparing apples to apples in the U.S., you're not necessarily doing that in Puerto Rico. We need to have policy that can adjust to that. And not just because U.S. policies like Oh, farms that are less than 100 acres, all of this applies to them the same way, because they don't function the same way. And that's a very important part of policy there. Another one that is really important in terms of the incentives, so you have to be recognized as a farmer. And even though this is not implemented through a U.S. agency, it comes from a U.S. policy, which is to be recognized as a farmer, you get certain aid packages that include chemical fertilizers, and include pesticides and a whole bunch of other things. And you have to document and swear basically, or you know, sign off that you have taken the package and that you're going to use it and it has been proven time and time again, especially for small-scale farms, fertilizers decrease the natural fertility of the soil. So once you start with a fertilizer package, and you continue on that, you create a dependency that cannot be sustained if next year, that same package is not available or is available with a lot less fertilizer, so you're creating a dependency rather than liberating people with these aid packages. Recently, with the COVID-19 pandemic, there were a list of products that were given out that were products that were either prioritized or given economic support because of the pandemic. Plantains, coffee, bananas, which are three of the main products in Puerto Rico were not included, because it's not one of the top products at the U.S. level, but it is the main product locally. Farmers insurance is another one. Farmers insurance requires you to have a minimum of one acre of the same thing planted. That is not survival within our system. That's just you are you're condemning that farmer to death or to extreme poverty for the rest of however long that person decides to farm. Looking into how these policies, how policies can be more flexible, and how they can be more applicable to distribute funding to a greater number of people on farms would be an important goal, I believe.
Alison: Well, thank you for that overview. I know that that question in particular could be a book on its own. Coming back a little bit more to much more recent history, how has the agroecology movement helped Puerto Ricans in the face of the global pandemic?
Katia: By shutting down supermarkets and shutting down being able to go outside, the fact that quite a few Puerto Ricans actually had access and, you know, the personal phone number of farmers they knew was a big step. So being able to actually get in touch with farmer or the farmer being able to get in touch with consumers and neighbors was a big plus during the pandemic. Another one that was really important, and that was really beautiful, was that because agroecological farmers had that direct connection, you know, shorter supply chain, to their consumer, they were able to keep their produce moving, they were not producing enough for the demand that was created because people couldn't go to the supermarket, they had to find it nearby. In the justice part, they were calling them and saying, Hey, are you okay? Are you getting the product out? Do you need help getting it out? And they would help conventional farmers get their product out through their own routes, the routes that they had already created, or the connections that they already had with their consumers. And that is precisely the justice that we're talking about. That is the solidarity that we need, and we need to promote.
Dan: That brings us to the end of our question and answer period with you. But this was so interesting. And I think it's really, the scale of the farms in Puerto Rico, are just they're so different than they are here. And I think that's a really an interesting point. Thank you so much for being a guest on our podcast. It was great to meet you today. And to hear all about the really interesting work you're doing in agroecology in Puerto Rico.
Katia: Thank you so much.
Alison: I've really enjoyed being a part of this discussion, because I love hearing about how various issues affect each other when there isn't necessarily an obvious connection. And the movement in Puerto Rico is an excellent example of this. Agriculture there isn't just about food or even about food and climate change. It's also about science, implementation, land rights, land management, weather resilience, economic recovery, community, sovereignty, environmental justice, and so, so much more. So if you liked the story and enjoyed the discussion as much as I did, and would like to learn more about EESI work related to sustainable agriculture, head over to our website at eesi.org. Also follow us on social media at @eesionline for all of our recent updates. The Climate Conversation is published as a supplement to our bi weekly newsletter, climate change solutions, go to eesi.org/signup to subscribe. Thanks for joining us and see you next time.
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