More Gov. Control Over Foreign Currency and Cuba’s Farmers

Little prospect of more food production

By Raul Medina Orama (El Toque)

HAVANA TIMES – Farm production in Cuba’s countryside is thinning out and state investment is minimal. However, in bureaucratic offices ideas abound for tightening control over the flow of foreign currency in the agricultural and forestry sector and over those who work the land. Just days before the end of 2025, a Resolution published of the Ministry of Agriculture (Minag), went beyond merely creating new administrative registries.

According to the regulation signed by the head of Minag, Ydael Jesus Perez Brito, it was “necessary to create a registry that allows, through the collection of data from natural and legal persons, knowledge of the relationship of agricultural producers (…) of rice, charcoal, and beekeeping, as well as beans, soybeans, and corn.”

In practice, Resolution 186 establishes a new mandatory filter for those who produce honey and charcoal for export. Farmers who seek access to payment schemes in foreign currency and who grow rice and other scarce grains, like almost everything in Cuban households, will also be subject to it.

Where to register and what information does the State require?

The regulation creates four specific registries—for rice, grains, apiculture, and charcoal—under the control of the municipal Agriculture offices. The registries are housed in the following departments of each local Minag office:

• In the Land Control Department, in the case of grain producers.
• In the Animal Health Department, in the case of apiculture producers.
• In the Forestry Department, in the case of charcoal producers and sellers.

For producer registration, which will take place on business days from Monday to Thursday, between nine in the morning and noon—the resolution requires the following information:

1. If the applicant is a natural person: first and last names, permanent identity number, legal address of the producer, and contact information.
2. If the applicant is a legal entity: corporate name, REEUP code if applicable, registered address, contact information, as well as the first and last name and position of its representative.
3. Ownership of the land on which the agricultural or forestry production referenced herein is carried out, in the case of being a landholder (under any arrangement).
4. Location of the land on which production is carried out and its area, in the case of being a landholder (under any arrangement).
5. Main line of production, which must include the product corresponding to the registry in which enrollment is sought.

Although the legal regulation insists that the registration procedure is simple and requires little formality, the reality is that the producer becomes subject to a chain of institutional endorsements, administrative verifications, and deadlines that reinforce dependence on the state apparatus to operate in some of the most profitable segments of the market (honey and charcoal) or those most in need of boosting to alleviate food insecurity in Cuba, such as rice and bean cultivation.

More paperwork—and what about production?

Resolution 186 of the Ministry of Agriculture is part of a regulatory trend in the Cuban farm sector: the expansion of administrative registries as a prerequisite for accessing key economic rights, particularly access to foreign currency.

The first evident impact is greater bureaucratization of export activity. To export honey or charcoal, registration is not merely an administrative requirement; it is a legal condition for being paid in foreign currency within official schemes.

During the 13th Congress of the National Association of Small Farmers (Anap), held on May 16 and 17, 2025, new “foreign-currency financing schemes” were announced to boost these products, under which the state export entity would control most of the funds. The producer’s share would be paid into a foreign-currency account with access to purchases in wholesale and retail markets in foreign currency, including fuel.

However, Resolution 25/2025 of the Ministry of Economy and Planning on financing the production of charcoal defined restrictions on foreign-currency accounts: “Producers may not (…) make transfers to other foreign-currency accounts or withdraw cash.”

The Communist Party daily Granma confirmed that, in the case of “honey, it will operate in the same way [as charcoal] with the entities Apicuba, Cítricos Caribe, and Cubaexport, and the producer will receive 650 USD per ton” in the new foreign-currency accounts. (The government receives around $4,000 per ton for the honey exported.)

In the case of rice and grains, Resolution 186 introduces a similar economic incentive tied to import substitution, but without clearly detailing access criteria or the amounts involved.

During Anap’s May 2025 congress, the Vice Minister of Economy and Planning, Roberto Perez, reported that for corn, beans, and soybeans “the marketing entity will receive 37% of the sale price in foreign currency to cover logistical costs for exports.”

Regarding rice, he explained that “the producer will receive 55% of the sale price in foreign currency, which includes the costs of pesticides, fertilizers, and lubricants.” The State would retain 45% of the sale price in foreign currency and allocate the remaining 5% to the Research Institute.

The underlying logic of Resolution 186 reinforces a model in which the State not only regulates production but also manages access to hard currency, one of the scarcest and most strategic resources in the Cuban economy. Opening foreign-currency accounts is subordinated to administrative certification of the producer, who must not only prove that they produce, but that they do so within the circuit the State recognizes, validates, and supervises. Ambiguous grounds for removal—such as “any other cause decided in the state’s interest”—reveal the extent to which remaining in the registry depends on political or administrative criteria that are not transparent.

In the Cuban State’s conception, “food sovereignty” in the countryside does not translate into freedom to decide what to produce, how to market it, or with whom to contract, but rather into the obligation to register, report, and submit to schemes defined from above.

In this sense, the registry ceases to be a neutral administrative instrument and becomes a mechanism of economic discipline. The producer who accepts control eventually gains access to foreign currency. The one who does not is left outside the formal circuit of export and financing, in a context in which the national currency continues to lose real purchasing power.

The official narrative considers food production “a matter of national security,” and the Minister of Economy and Planning, Joaquin Alonso Vasquez, has said that by 2026 the regime projects “production increases” in “rice, beans, corn, fresh milk, eggs, meat, root crops, and vegetables.”

Beyond the discourse of Cuban officials, in a country without effective accountability or political competition, bureaucracy is more prolific in regulations and state control than in ensuring food reaches households.

Economist Pedro Monreal warns that “the Cuban government misinforms citizens about the severity of the current agricultural crisis (…) combining a simplistic narrative with a reinforced statistical blackout.”

The expert told elTOQUE: “A very large percentage of Cuban household spending has to do with a single thing: food. And Cuba’s agricultural crisis appears unstoppable (and I say ‘appears’ because there are no official data, or they come very late and fragmented), but it is striking how much domestic agricultural production in Cuba has fallen.”

Monreal—who was also a Program Specialist in the Social and Human Sciences sector at UNESCO (2008–2023)—explains that the island’s government also lacks the ability to “replace that food deficit in Cuba with imports because there is no enough foreign currency to bring in what is needed.”

Apparently, the authorities’ response to this scenario will continue to be tightening control over the flow of foreign currency as much as possible, rather than cutting the thick red tape for agricultural activity and encouraging producer independence. For the latter, the dilemma is clear: accept more registries and administrative discretion or be left out of the few spaces in which hard currency circulates in the farm sector.

First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.

Read more from Cuba here at Havana Times.