Cuban legal structures
facilitating urban agriculture:
Adaptation for the New South
Wales local government context
Liesel Spencer
School of Law, University of Western Sydney
l.spencer@uws.edu.au
14.8.2013
Local government – a lot of
responsibilities, not a lot of resources
The ‘Councils’ Charter’:
s 8 Local Government Act 1993 (NSW)
Integrated Planning and Reporting Framework:
Ch 13 Local Government Act 1993 (NSW)
Regulatory power and statutory planning
Environmental Planning and Assessment Act
1979 (NSW)
‘Co-benefits’
• “An additional benefit from an action that is
undertaken to achieve a particular purpose,
that is not directly related to that purpose.”
• Meeting public (human) health and
environmental health responsibilities at the
same time
• Making councils’ resources stretch further
Why public health is an
urgent issue for Australian
governments
• Epidemic of non-communicable diseases
(NCDs)
• Economic forecasting (on the record in both
NSW and Victorian Parliaments) that by 2030,
the entire State budget could be absorbed by
health costs
Cuba – 1990s economic crisis
• Soviet withdrawal of oil and US trade embargo –
‘Special Period’
• Agriculture previously dependent on oil – legacy of the
‘Green Revolution’ – industrial agriculture –
monocultures (mostly sugarcane for export) with heavy
inputs of imported fertiliser and pesticides – soil
degradation and resistant pests
• Government response – changed agricultural model;
break up of state farms into cooperatives; rationing
Cuba – public health outcomes
and environmental health outcomes
• By internationally recognised measures, Cuba is a
model of sustainability and a model of public
health
• Low carbon footprint plus acceptably high quality
of life – only country to achieve this
• Low incidence of coronary disease, diabetes,
infant mortality
• A nation-scale public health experiment no ethics
committee would approve!
Cuba – agricultural model
• ‘Agroecology’ and La Via Campesina – minimal
external inputs and outputs
• Organic (integrated management – substitute
inputs)
• Permaculture
• Cuban government is now giving up to 13.5 ha
to families interested in taking up
agroecological farming
Cuba – urban agriculture
• Havana and other cities 40-60% selfsufficiency in fresh vegetables
• 383,000 urban farms covering 50,000ha of
otherwise unused land producing more than
1.5million tons of vegetables
• Job creation: over 350,000 new jobs in urban
agriculture programs
Cuba – legal structures
supporting urban agriculture
• Break-up of state owned farms into
cooperatives
• Unidades Basicas de Produccion Cooperativas
Permanent usufruct rights – rent free use of state
owned land, ownership of crops produced
Cuba – legal structures
supporting urban agriculture
• Organoponicos
Started in military facilities as a food security
measure
Raised container garden beds for intensive
production
Organic methods
Construction materials and compost provided by the
State
Occupy unused land all over the capital cities
Cuba – legal structures
supporting urban agriculture
• Los Mercados Agropecuarios
A free market for sale of produce direct to purchaser
No state intervention
Growers obtain highest monetary return for labour
Translation to the NSW local
government context
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Public land and public open space
‘Commons’
Cooperatives
Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs)
Verge gardens
Community gardens
Local government already does these things:
Community garden on
Housing Commission land,
Riverwood NSW
Farmers’ markets – North Sydney
and Marrickville, NSW
Community fruit tree grove,
Unanderra, NSW –
community centre grounds
Verge gardens –
Chippendale NSW
How can councils in NSW achieve more
with urban agriculture, by applying
aspects of the Cuban model?
• empowerment of the individual with selforganisation and horizontal knowledge
transfer
• secure access to land; stable possession of
land
• For urban agriculture to work, people need to
be given both forms of ‘ownership’
Self-organisation and horizontal
knowledge transfer
• The ‘people’ side of urban agriculture
• Campesino-a-campesino model in Cuba
• Learning organic urban agriculture from other
urban farmers – incl. traditional knowledge
• Cooperatives – community groups
• Autonomy and control over work
• e.g. successful model in local public schools in the
Illawarra – ‘Living Classrooms’
Secure access to land; stable
possession of land
• Cuban experience – urban farmers (and rural
farmers) had faster uptake of organic and
agroecological practices, and higher
productivity, in the cooperative farming
model, which gave stable long term rights
over specific areas of land
• Local government has statutory power to
grant long term leases over public land
Using LG law to give secure, stable
access to public land for urban
agriculture
• Public land is classified as ‘community’ or
‘operational’ under s 26.
• Community land further categorised, according to
use, s 36 LGA, including ‘general community use’
• Local Government (General) Regulation 2005
(NSW) Part 4 – lease and licence of community
land
Urban agriculture and statutory
purpose
• A categorisation of ‘general community use’
under s 36I aims to ‘to promote, encourage and
provide for the use of the land, and to provide
facilities on the land, to meet the current and
future needs of the local community and of the
wider public, in relation to public recreation and
the physical, cultural, social and intellectual
welfare or development of individual members of
the public, and in relation to purposes for which a
lease, licence or other estate may be granted in
respect of the land’.
Conclusion
• Local government has limited resources and large
responsibilities including public health and
environmental protection
• NCDs are a public health crisis
• Cuba is the only country in the developed world to
have managed the balance of human health and
quality of life, and environmental sustainability
• Nation-scale implementation of urban agriculture,
backed by government, is significantly responsible for
Cuba’s positive outcomes
• Cuban legal structures for urban agriculture can be
adapted to the NSW local government context as a
strategy to meet councils’ statutory public health and
environmental protection responsibilities