Cuba: 9th International Meeting on Agroecology, Food Sovereignty, Nutrition Education and Cooperativism | Declaration

From 17 to 23 November 2025, the 9th International Meeting on Agroecology, Food Sovereignty, Nutrition Education and Cooperativism was held at the National Training Centre of the National Association of Small Farmers “Niceto Pérez García” in the municipality of Güira de Melena, Cuba.

One hundred and twenty-one representatives from 16 countries participated in the event.

In accordance with the programme of the 9th Meeting, 14 activities or blocks of exchange activities were organised, covering a wide range of topics;

• Four conferences and three interactive panels, both in plenary session, analysed and provided information on: the international and national situation;
• The content and projection of recently approved policies and legal texts on agroecology in Cuba;
• The roles and challenges of youth in agroecology;
• The ecological, economic and social sustainability of farms;
• Updated information related to the effects of the blockade of Cuba on Cuban agriculture and the implementation of Agenda 20-30 by Cuba.

Five commissions worked on specific topics related to agroecology, such as family farming, agrobiodiversity and seeds, gender and training processes, food security and sovereignty, agrarian reform and cooperativism.

In order to follow up on these lessons, two days of direct visits were organised to farms and cooperatives in the provinces of Artemisa, Havana and Mayabeque, to exchange with peasant families and cooperatives, highlighting the results achieved in agroecology, including the links between the economy, society and the environment.

The meeting provided an opportunity to exchange views and evaluate the application of experiences in agroecological practices and the search for alternatives to achieve sustainable agriculture that guarantees food sovereignty and sustainability for our peoples.

Experiences on the challenges faced by young people and the role of women in the agroecological transition proved to be innovative and interesting. The importance of having strong farmers’ organisations and cooperatives that bring together the promotion and consolidation of the agroecological model at the grassroots level was reaffirmed.

These cooperatives draw on their organisational capacity, their strength in mobilising people, the availability of individuals with agroecological and methodological knowledge, and their management capacity at the local level. It is these characteristics that provide the materials and financial resources necessary to ensure the sustainability and continuity of the transition process.

The meeting examined the usefulness of the Peasant-to-Peasant method in strengthening participatory processes with the aim of ensuring the rapid dissemination and multiplication of agroecological knowledge and practices. Relevant experiences were presented on how Peasant-to-Peasant method has also served to promote local capacity building, increase autonomy, and ensure the recognition and representation of actors and organisational structures that promote the transition to the agroecological model, among technical and financial service institutions, national programme managers and authorities at all levels.

In this final declaration, we wish to reaffirm the motivations, experiences and knowledge we have gained during our field visits, where we have seen how massive the agroecological movement is in Cuba and that, in addition to grassroots promoters and facilitators, a significant number of professionals trained in this field focus their work on the most important arena of the Cuban Peasant Organisation, its cooperatives, and also provide the necessary coordination with other associations of technicians and producers, research and teaching centres in order to jointly promote and consolidate the promotion of agroecology and the farmer-to-farmer methodology.

We also observe the formulas for obtaining credit, the marketing system and the destinations of agricultural products, public crop insurance, as well as the fair prices they receive, elements that undoubtedly demonstrate the need to advance and consolidate the results obtained in these areas.

We appreciate the importance of taking into consideration the programme for promoting agroecology through the design of a mass movement that includes social and cultural aspects, among which are complementarity with the gender strategy and work with the family, intergenerational relations with an emphasis on the training of children and adolescents, giving young people every opportunity, all within the framework of a strong agricultural cooperative movement.

We express our admiration, solidarity and support for Cuba, which continues to resist the effects of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by successive US administrations for more than 60 years, condemned by the international community, including the United Nations General Assembly on 33 occasions, by an overwhelming majority. We therefore stand in solidarity with Cuba and condemn the blockade.

We confirm that the work accomplished in recent days has allowed us to reflect, evaluate and plan new common strategies within the framework of our peasant, indigenous and rural workers’ organisations.

To this end, the participants in the 9th International Meeting on Agroecology, Food Sovereignty, Nutritional Education and Cooperativism have reached the following conclusions:

1. We reiterate our concern about the intense deterioration of natural resources and the impact on the environment, including the accelerated process of global climate change, phenomena that endanger the very existence of the human species, emphasising that through agroecology and cooperativism we can contribute to slowing down this process.

2. We reaffirm that agroecology and sustainable agriculture are goals for which we must fight, aware of their usefulness for current and future generations, while identifying agroecology as an alternative to resist and overcome in the struggle of peoples and, in the particular case of Cuba, to face the blockade, reduce the impact of the market and the international economic crisis, as well as in the struggle against the crisis and the offensive of big capital, without ever forgetting the principle of the unity of peoples and our organisations.

3. We affirm that food sovereignty and nutritional education policies and their consolidation are the means to prevent the food crisis that is rapidly worsening and spreading worldwide, the main cause of which is the depletion of the natural conditions necessary for agricultural production caused by the misnamed Green Revolution model and global consumerism, as well as the concentration of ownership and use of land and productive inputs.

4. We affirm that Cuba’s nutrition education policy is an example to be followed in order to guarantee sufficient and healthy food, adapted to the needs of each person and each culture, that is, to satisfy a need, a human, political and social right for which all our societies, their organisations and institutions, including States, must fight and commit themselves.

5. We reaffirm that agroecology and sustainable agriculture to achieve food sovereignty require the fulfilment of objectives that guarantee their attainment and sustainability:

• We reaffirm that the implementation of agrarian reform, which, in addition to access to and the right to work the land, includes the implementation of public investment policies and programmes in rural areas, based on a sustainable rural environment, which provides farmers and communities with material and technical support systems, as well as equitable policies, credit systems, crop insurance, prices, and viable forms of marketing for agricultural production; therefore:
• We consider it necessary to implement social, health, literacy, educational and technical development policies, as well as to value and respect the ancestral knowledge and traditional practices of our communities and peoples.
• In parallel with the above actions, we call on our organisations to continue developing activities aimed at promoting the creation and consolidation of a strong cooperative movement in our rural areas, in accordance with the specific characteristics of our countries.

6. We agree to reject the technological model of the Green Revolution, due to its unsustainable nature, and we reaffirm the need to preserve the forms, practices and principles of traditional agriculture in each locality. It is also necessary to motivate, recognise and disseminate the results of peasant experimentation and innovation, as a manifestation of the constant enrichment of local knowledge heritage.

7. Similarly, we agree that, under conditions of equality, cooperation and solidarity, these innovations can be supported and complemented by the results of professional research, and together they can become the foundations of the new agriculture of the 21st century.

8. In the technological and productive sphere, it is necessary to strengthen the capacity of each family and community to decide on the techniques to be used and the crops to be sown as the basis for our technological sovereignty, to emphasise the protection of soils, flora and fauna, as well as the preservation and rational use of water sources, and to care for native seeds and animal breeds as part of humanity’s heritage.

9. It is necessary to introduce into the analysis of the results of agroecological systems economic studies that show the advantages and superior productivity of diversified production systems that integrate their productive components, are independent of external inputs, make maximum use of natural ecosystem services, and involve family participation.

10. We value the role of the family and the community as fundamental supporters and actors in the implementation of agroecology, the sustainability of agriculture and the achievement of food sovereignty.

11. We appreciate the usefulness of intergenerational relationships, with an emphasis on vocational training and socio-professional guidance for rural children and adolescents in order to develop their skills and knowledge in agricultural sustainability. We believe that agroecology is an opportunity for all of us to take responsibility for eradicating hunger, poverty and exclusion, and for safeguarding the quality of life of human beings.

12. We reaffirm that it is essential to work towards gender equality, putting rural women at the forefront, given the demand for change in their current status, which is marked by invisibility and discrimination, as they are an important factor in stimulating economic, productive and social activities.

13. We reaffirm the importance of using participatory methodologies for the dissemination of agroecology and sustainable agriculture, and we recognise the value of the link between methods of disseminating knowledge about technologies and the models promoted, acknowledging the usefulness and effectiveness achieved by Cuba through the use of the Peasant-to-Peasant methodology, adapted to its conditions.

14. We declare that the moment calls for unity and that, to this end, it is necessary to develop and strengthen forms of organisation which, being social in nature and with economic support, encourage programmes and movements set up to disseminate agroecology. In this context, we recognise the important role played by cooperativism in promoting unity and mutual aid, the socialisation of knowledge, the democratisation of decisions and collective self-management.

We will always keep in mind in our work the ideas of the Commander-in-Chief, our comrade Fidel Castro Ruz, that a better world is possible, and we will do our part to save the livelihood of the human species now. The Cuban people have always been ready to defend the independence and freedom they have won, as well as to offer selfless solidarity to all the peoples of the world, whatever the circumstances. At a time like this, we cannot forget the many occasions on which Cuba has been the victim of international terrorism, both on its own territory and abroad.

We can cite numerous examples, such as the invasion of Playa Girón, the maintenance of the Guantánamo naval base for more than 100 years, against the will of the Cuban people, the constant threats of military aggression by various US administrations, biological warfare and the genocidal blockade for more than 60 years, inclusion on a fallacious list of countries supposedly supporting terrorism, and a media war laden with all kinds of unprecedented slander and insults, among other examples.

Finally, we would like to thank all the peasant, indigenous and rural workers’ organisations, as well as professional organisations, research and teaching centres, prominent figures, not to mention the contribution of certain public sectors and certain states around the world, for their constant work towards achieving our goals.

We would particularly like to thank once again the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), the people who worked on organising and running the meeting, the farmers we visited for the welcome they gave to each participant, and the organisation that made it possible to meet the expectations for the success of this 9th meeting.

Let us work to continue globalising the struggle and hope, so that hunger disappears and not humanity!

Done at Havana, Cuba, on 23 November 2025.

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