“La Jama” (Food)

By Xel2 (El Toque)

HAVANA TIMES – This week we have drawn on jama, food, on foods that, due to the soaring inflation we are experiencing, are increasingly difficult to obtain. Oil and egg carton prices appear to be competing to break records or emulate those set by pork.

The long lines and the shelves with the repeated products attest to the shortage. Not even the stores with US dollar prices, scattered throughout the country and which are a plague on the pockets of most Cubans, are well stocked.

Guaranteeing protein at the family table is a creative challenge that requires a lot of patience to overcome the endless lines or, otherwise, you have to become prey to resellers. Chicken and minced meat are repeated ad nauseam on the menu of the week, bread is less and less bread, and market prices portray the disaster of national agriculture.

Behind all this scarcity, the inefficiency of those who design and control the economy rears its head. Compulsive regulators who ignore that, without economic incentives, there can be no competitive and innovative production; This has made us more dependent on imports.

To top things off, the international context has become more unstable, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine guaranteed 29% of the world’s wheat production and Russia 19% of corn. Fuel prices have also risen. None of this is a good sign for those who import most of their food.

We keep wandering in the desert without finding the promised land.

Wimar Verdecia Fuentes

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