Rice prices has doubled on world markets.
before the Castro regime Cuba was self-sufficient in rice.
castro destroyed all that.
Castro's destruction of nutrition.
Rice is the staple of Cuban food. Cubans where no bread eaters. they ate
rice.
"After WW2 im****ted rice was difficult to obtain and costly, so Cuban
farmers had an incentive to grow rice. In 1949 Cuba produced 10 percent
of domestic consumption. In 1960, the year after Castro came to power,
the Cuban rice harvest was 400,000 metric toms, making Cuba for the
first time self-sufficient in rice. During the decade of the fifties,
Cuban producers had successfully adopted the latest methods of rice
farming employed in Louisiana and Texas. From the point of technological
expertise, rice
production outstripped that of any other branch of Cuban agriculture; and
in
terms of money value, rice became one of Cuba's major crops.
By 1962, with Cuban agriculture socialized, the rice yield was reduced
by 50%. The same year, as has already been noted, the rationing of
foodstuffs was introduced, with the rice ration set at 6 pounds per
person per month. That lowered per capita consumption by two thirds.
More over, for low-income Cubans, for whom rice formed amore
substantial part of their diet, the reduction was even greater."
M. Halperin, Return to Havana, Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville,
1994, p.49-50.
A well functioning free market ensured that from a shortage in 1949
break even was achieved by 1960. Castro ruined the industry by 1962. In
two years 50% of the annual need in rice were no longer met.
In 1966 the rice ration was again reduced by half to 3 ponds per person
per month. that is down from 18 to 3 ponds since the start of the
dictator****p.
The reason was: the deal that Castro himself had made with China on the
supply of rice fell through when Castro didn't deliver the promised
sup****t
in their "polemic" with the SU.
(for details on the rice Crisis and the Cuba - China quarrel see: M.
Halperin, Taming of Fidel Castro, Berkeley: University of California
Press,
1981, p. 195-207.)
"Thus in 1965, Cuban rice production had dwindled to 50,000 tons..."
M. Halperin, Return to Havana, Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville,
1994, p.50..
Why did Castro need to reduce rice productions even further: to grow
more sugar to reach his (foolish) goal of 10 million tons of sugar in
1970.
He never made it, but destroyed the production of a staple food while at
it.
Gross incompetence. Criminal negligence.
At the end of 1989 the rice ration was 5 pounds. Down from an average
consumption of 18 pounds before the revolution.
Last I saw that is still the same outside Havana with a 20% larger
ration of 6 pounds in Havana.
On sugar:
I can recommend you this book:
Marcelo Fernandez, Cuba y la économia Azucarera Mundial, Havana, 1989,.
"Cuba"s response to economic prosperity has ... been problematic. In
each of the three world sugar booms since the early 60's, Cuba has
mishandled economic policies, over im****ted, and generated the
foundations of a subsequent economic crisis."
The guy is a professor at Harvard.
See:
Jorge I. Dominguez, "The Obstacles and Prospects for Improved US-Cuban
relations," in US-Cuban Relations in the 1990's, ed. Jorge I. Dominguez
and Rafael Hernandez (Boulder Colo. : Westview Press, 1989, 32.
Castro abandoned all attempts at ex****t substitution and ex****t
diversification in 1963. Castro thereby destroyed the food production in
Cuba for prestige reasons: to achieve more sugar than Batista and to
thereby dominate the sugar market.
Idiotic megalomaniac goals that destroyed the Cuban food production.
Cuba failed to even meet their required "planned" production to meet
it's obligations to the SU.
Castro made Cuba more than ever dependent on one crop: sugar.
The dependence on sugar never declined since the late 1950's: over 75%
of ex****ts. Production rose from 5 to 7.5 million tons between the 70's
and 80's.
Prices ranged between 10 and 4 cents per pound (except the peak in 1985
of 20c).
Mercelo Fernandez said: "Expressed in their real value, the sugar
prices[of the late 1980's] are comparable with those of the decade of
the 1930's ... that is to say, the lowest prices of the century"
(Hernandez, o.c., p.5)
Halperin has a great image for the Cuban sugar economy: "Cuba's sugar
dependent economy is on a treadmill: it has to produce more and more
sugar to remain in the same place". ( M. Halperin, o.c., p 100)
Castro is reaping his "grim harvest".
His mistakes cost lives and brought misery.
The worst is that he wants to be able to continue unhindered.
The disaster is now "irrevocable"
Jul 4th 2002 | HAVANA
From The Economist print edition
A non-working system is enshrined forever
http://www.economist.com/World/la/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1217228
Cuba rethinks rice im****ts due to soaring costs
Fri Apr 18, 2008 11:10am EDT
By Marc Frank
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba has begun clearing sickle bush from thousands of
hectares of rice land as soaring prices force it to reconsider im****ting
hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the population's main staple, local
media re****ted.
"The Ruta Invasora rice farm is working to recover a large part of its
land largely covered with Marabu (sickle bush) and other brush,"
Camaguey province's weekly Communist party newspaper re****ted.
Before the collapse of former-benefactor the Soviet Union, Cuba's nine
provincial rice farms, covering 150,000 hectares, produced up to 260,000
tonnes of consumable rice.
Decapitalization, plague and drought followed.
Last year the farms produced around 70,000 tonnes while dry-land rice
farms at the municipal level and private producers added another 150,000
tonnes to output.
In recent years, Cuba has im****ted more than 500,000 tonnes of rice
annually, mainly from Vietnam.
"The price of a tonne of rice has gone from $223 in 2002 to $855 this
year," Igor Montero, the vice president of state-food im****ter Alim****t,
said this week on national television.
The price and availability of rice is a politically volatile issue in
Cuba, with the government subsidizing the cost through a ration system.
Rice is the Caribbean island's most im****tant staple, with minimum
domestic consumption estimated at 700,000 tonnes annually.
New Cuban President Raul Castro has prioritized agriculture since taking
over for his ailing brother, Fidel Castro, in February.
The younger Castro, 76, has increased resources flowing to the sector,
decentralized decision-making and distribution, increased prices the
state pays for products to private and cooperative producers, among
other measures.
The Camaguey newspaper said Venezuela was providing financing for
machinery and other supplies to get that particular provincial farm up
and running again.
"With adequate resources production should return to previous levels of
24,000 tonnes per year," farm director Idelino Alvarez was quoted as
stating.
A recent national radio broadcast re****ted that in Granma province,
Cuba's biggest rice producer, "new lands are being readied to plant rice."
Cuban yields compare poorly with other Caribbean Basin areas, so
improved cultivation could double output without increasing land use.
A rice joint venture with China, Taichi SA, has worked for a decade to
raise yields on small local plots.
Vietnamese experts have also provided assistance for a number of years.
(Re****ting by Marc Frank, editing by Matthew Lewis)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1843276220080418?sp=true
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