Cuban agriculture reels as Hurricane Rafael worsens food shortages

By Dave Sherwood

Cuban farmer Leonardo Abreu clambered over fallen banana plants in a field beside his home, taking stock of the wreckage two weeks after Category 3 Hurricane Rafael ripped across Cuba.

He lost beans, yucca, mango and avocado trees and an almost unfathomable number of bananas. Fences, too. His power lines are down, his generator broken. He has not had electricity for two weeks. He has no water to irrigate crops.

"We're starting again from scratch," said the 47-year old resident of Caimito, his head in his hands. "Everything has been wiped out."

His family's pain will reverberate in Cuba's capital, Havana. Nearly 2 million residents there depend on farms like this one, in neighboring Artemisa province, for food.

Even before the storm, Cubans across the island - including Havana - had seen prices soar, government subsidies dry up and food grow increasingly scarce, the result of the island's worst economic crisis in decades.

The hurricane strike underscored the increasing vulnerability of Cuba's already ailing agricultural system - and difficulties many Cubans face finding food.

"If you think things are bad now, wait a month," says Abreu, who has dedicated his life to farming on land he inherited from his grandfather. "We'll be eating the skins off the bananas."

Farmers like Abreu "rescued" as many crops as they could ahead of and immediately after the storm, harvesting not quite ripe fruits and vegetables and rushing them to market.

But replacing what was lost is the next big problem, said Jorge Luis Gonzalez, a 60-year-old rancher who followed his cattle through pasture on horseback on Monday.

At best, he said, the winter planting season - when such staples as cabbage, lettuce and tomatoes take root - will be delayed.

"We can't plant. There's no water. The pumps work with electricity and without it, we can't do anything," he said.

Cuba's government said on Tuesday it had restored electricity to 62% of Artemisa province.

FARM COLLAPSE

The island's farm industry was already in freefall when Rafael hit.

Cuba blames U.S. trade and economic sanctions, which the Communist-run government says make it difficult to purchase farm inputs and infrastructure.

Agriculture Minister Ydael Perez Brito said in October farmers were working with just 10% of the fuel they need. Only 7% of farmland in Cuba is irrigated, he said, and the country had been able to buy only small quantities of fertilizer, chicken and pig feed in the past five years.

A record-breaking exodus of migrants and poor pay have also drained the countryside of workers.

Whatever the reason, agriculture's sharp decline is clear.

Official statistics show the number of hens, including egg layers, has dropped 62% since 2020, while sows of reproductive age have dropped 73% during the same period.

Both eggs and pork, once staples of the Cuban diet, have become scarce and expensive.

Prices for fruits and vegetables have also soared, even as quantity and variety have plummeted. Inflation hit 30% in August, according to official statistics.

Alejandro Castillo, a retired Havana resident, said he was growing worried about putting food on the table as he lugged a bag of vegetables outside a market in Havana.

"I come to this market regularly and prices just keep going up. There are products here now, but what will be left for the end of the year?"