By Osmel Ramirez Alvarez
HAVANA TIMES – The Cuban countryside is in crisis. In spite of its vast potential and still being one of the country’s greatest treasures, it doesn’t yield what it should or can. The Communist government’s failed economic model prevents its development and efficiency, like a straitjacket.
In spite of receiving almost 2 million USD over the past 11 years, with huge investments in hydraulics and millions in resources being invested in the sector during Raul’s time in office, the country continues to depend greatly on food imports which our fertile land could produce itself.
Instead of production increasing, it is paralyzed or even falling; instead of there being better efficiency, which would translate into better yields and lower prices, the exact opposite is happening. Instead of markets filling up and finding ourselves with an opportunity to export, dependency on food imports is on the rise; and far from Cuban agriculture being the guarantee of “National Security”, like Raul would say time and time again, today’s economic crisis and lack of liquidity leaves us in a state of “National Insecurity”, because of food shortages.
We were always a predominantly agricultural country. Sugar cane, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, bananas, citrus fruits, pineapples and livestock were our exportable products, even if it was just at one-off moments. And, there was another range of crops for national consumption or substenance such as corn, beans, cassava, malanga, sweet potatoes, potatoes, yams, peanuts, tropical fruits and vegetables, that decorate our countryside.
Almost half of this country’s land was covered with sugar cane plantations up until the mid-’90s and then, suddenly, the government decided to destroy two thirds of the sugar industry, instead of revamping it. It would have been much more viable to let national and foreign enterprise to use a large part of this for energy conversion in Cuba. Via biomass and biofuel (ethanol), as sugar cane has huge potential in this respect.
But, as always, political decisions came before what would be convenient for the economy. Not to mention the highly-experienced and technically-skilled human capital, with centuries of experience, that was left redundant. The Cuban government ended up buying sugar from Colombia and France to meet the basic rations demand. And, because what remains of the sugar industry and agriculture has been completely neglected, we don’t even produce a million tons and yields are way below 50% of what’s feasible.
An industry with so much to offer still, was razed to the ground. And the land, which in megalomaniac plans would have so many things planted on them, ended up being taken over by the marabu bush weeds. Just like what happened with the 1959 agrarian reform and Marabu weeds took the place of landowners’ cattle and crops.
Coffee, bean, rice and corn production are in high demand in our national market and there is no objective reason why we can’t meet that demand and even produce more for export. The State’s centralized economic model is the only obstacle in our way, which corrupts with its bureaucracy, incompetence, corruption, limited autonomy and low sense of belonging to the the overall productive machine. Just like everything else in the economy.
There are many problems, but it’s worth mentioning a few:
It’s a very complex issue and has many aspects. Right now, the Ministry of Agriculture, alongside ANAP, is carrying out a study going from farmer to farmer, pressuring them to hand more over to the state, because of the crisis. The news we have now is that this year we will have less supplies for crops because of the crisis, but we have the “commitment to produce the same or more, because the country needs us to.”
This is undoubtedly a far worse off situation than previous years, even though we didn’t make any advances either. Only sporadic and unsustainable results that were satisfactory. Because while the government refuses to ammend its economic model, its deadweight of incompetence and dysfunctionality infecting every sector of our economy, Cuban farming will still be condemned to a standstill.
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