Agrarian reforms in Cuba

The agrarian reforms in Cuba sought to break up large landholdings and redistribute land to those peasants who worked it, to cooperatives, and the state.

The Institutio Nacional de Reforma Agraria (INRA)—an agency of the Cuban government responsible to implement the first and second Agrarian Reforms.

The agency adapted the Soviet model of organisation—small collectives (Asociación Nacional de Agricultures Pequeños) and large(er) state farms.

In regards to how these laws related to land reform, Castro stated: The second revolutionary law would give non-mortgageable and non-transferable ownership of the land to all tenant and subtenant farmers, lessees, share croppers and squatters who hold parcels of five caballerías of land or less, and the State would indemnify the former owners on the basis of the rental which they would have received for these parcels over a period of ten years.The third revolutionary law would have granted workers and employees the right to share 30% of the profits of all the large industrial, mercantile and mining enterprises, including the sugar mills.

[6] In the speech Guevara comments on land reform, stating: We have begun to put the Rebel Army's social aims into effect; we have an armed democracy.

When we plan out the agrarian reform and observe the new revolutionary laws to complement it and make it viable and immediate, we are aiming at social justice.

This means the redistribution of land and also the creation of a vast internal market and crop diversification, two cardinal objectives of the revolutionary government that are inseparable and that cannot be postponed since they involve the people's interest.

[14] On the anniversary of the 26th of July, the Cuban government invited peasants who had received new land titles to visit Havana.

The second agrarian reform law was introduced in 1963 to further limit the allowable size of private farms—all property holdings over 67 hectares became nationalised.

[19] As a result of the state's dominant position in agriculture, the first and second agrarian reforms transformed Cuba's natural resource organisation.

Not only did the biodiversity and environment suffer, but Cuba also grew to be dependent on the Soviet Union for its production and supply inputs, making it vulnerable to external shocks.