José Alvarez, Ph.D.
In Memoriam
José (Pepin) Álvarez was born in Antilla, Cuba, and left his native Cuba in 1969. He obtained a Ph.D. in food and resource economics from the University of Florida and immediately went to work at the University of Florida/IFAS Everglades Research and Education Center in Belle Glade, Florida, where he finished a productive academic career in 2004, receiving the title of Emeritus Professor.
A great deal of his time was devoted to studying Cuba’s agricultural sector. Beginning in 1992, he and William A. Messina, Jr. received the first of a series of grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which led to the establishment of an active program of collaborative research with economists and agricultural specialists at the University of Havana’s Centro de Investigaciones de Economía Internacional (CIEI) and Centro de Estudios de la Economía Cubana (CEEC). This collaboration led to an unprecedented conference held in Washington, DC in 1998 entitled “Role of the Agricultural Sector in Cuba’s Integration into the Global Economy and its Future Economic Structures: Implications for Florida and U.S. Agriculture.” At this event, a team of Cuban and UF agricultural economists presented a series of research papers based on active joint collaboration.
As a result of his widely recognized research on Cuban agriculture, in 1998, Dr. Alvarez and Mr. Messina were recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture with its National Honor Award for Superior Service, the highest honor conferred by the USDA to agricultural researchers who are not part of the USDA.
Six of the 16 books Dr. Alvarez authored or co-authored have received 17 national or international literary awards and recognitions.
Dr. Alvarez passed away in 2021 from the effects of COVID.
Publisher’s Link to Book Here.