NPR's David Welna reports on Cuba's effort to increase food production by breaking its huge Soviet-style farm collectives into smaller farmer-run cooperatives. So far the project has had only limited success, largely because the co-ops are required to sell eighty percent of what they grow to the government, at artificially low official prices. In addition, the state controls what the co-ops produce. Critics say Fidel Castro doesn't want the co-ops to do too well because economic success would make them less dependent on the government.
Copyright 1997 NPR
