"Metabolic Rifts and Restoration: Agricultural Crises and the Potential of Cuba’s Organic, Socialist Approach to Food Production"

IntroductionModern large-scale, capitalist agriculture remains at the nexus of numerous social and ecological contradictions. Its ability to produce massive amounts of food is unparalleled, yet billions of people worldwide are malnourished. capital-intensive agricultural techniques contribute to a transformation of property tenure and alterations in labor relations. While these changes can generate prosperity for some, they also tend to further the escalation of global inequalities and displacement of rural people throughout the world. At the same time, this form of agriculture generates a myriad of ecological problems, including the pollution of watersheds with pesticides and excess fertilizers, the deterioration of soil fertility, the loss of habitat for native species, and the accumulation of substantial quantities of animal waste. this system of food production is supported by the immense consumption of fossil fuels used, for example, to produce nitrogen fertilizer and transport goods to world markets, contributing to the atmospheric accumulation of carbon dioxide and, therefore, global climate change. many of the problems associated with modern large-scale agriculture-including ecological degradation, health deprivation, rural dispossession, and the division of labor-are rooted in the demands of accumulation and concentration of capital.In what follows, we contribute to the analysis of modern global food systems to (1) advance a more thorough socioecological analysis of contemporary capitalist agriculture and (2) assess the potential for a socially and ecologically just food production system. Our first goal is to address how the organization of capitalist agriculture consistently generates ecological problems. In order to illustrate this point, we employ Karl marx's metabolic approach-via the concepts of metabolic rift and metabolic restoration-to study the dynamic relationship of interchange between social and ecological systems. We examine capitalist agriculture as part of a social metabolic order, combining marx's critique of political economy with his metabolic analysis. this investigation reveals how capital creates metabolic rifts-i.e., breaks, ruptures, or separations in socioecological systems-in agriculture, which intensify the division between town and country, lead to the depletion of soil nutrients, and undermine ecosystems.Our second goal is to demonstrate how transcending metabolic rifts necessitates a revolution in the social metabolic order of society. marx's concept of metabolic restoration, which is rooted in maintaining the reproduction of natural cycles and systems, helps establish a foundation for what is required by a sustainable society. By way of a comparative analysis, we discuss how cuba's model of organic agriculture illustrates the potential for metabolic restoration, through reestablishing nutrient cycles, overcoming alienating conditions of labor, reconnecting farmers to the land, and establishing participatory forms of production. the expanded theoretical discussion of metabolic rift and metabolic restoration aids in demonstrating that the cuban model of organic agriculture is distinct from US organic agriculture as well as historic, state socialist regimes of food production.We begin with a discussion of marx's metabolic, political-economic approach. then, we address the metabolic rifts in modern agriculture, including US organic food production. We conclude by applying our theoretical development to cuba's distinct model of organic agriculture. Our analysis suggests that the way toward restoring ecologically degraded systems, associated with agriculture, lies in transforming the political economy of food systems.Metabolic analysis and the critique of Political economyEnvironmental degradation has existed throughout human history and is not unique to capitalism (Broswimmer 2002; Buell 2003; davis 2001; diamond 2005; foster 1994; Ponting 1993). Nevertheless, the emergence and spread of capitalist social relations created a fundamental change in the interactions between natural and social systems-capitalism produced a specific social metabolic order (clark and foster 2010; meszaros 1995, 40-45). …