STORY: Sugar cane has long been “king” in Cuba.
However, while the island nation once produced millions of tons of sugar, next year local media say it’s only expecting a fraction of that, some 300,000 tons.
It’s a bitter symbol of agriculture’s decline in Cuba.
Supply shortages plague the country’s farms, and have hit sugar especially hard.
Farmer Cristobal Ramos is still hanging on.
“I think that if the government worries and takes care of the farms and the cane producers who still have cane and others who are interested in cane planting, then production can continue – if they provide us with some fertilizers, some pesticides, supplies, and fuel. Why? Because cane is a very docile plant, as you can see, Hurricane Rafael passed through here and it wreaked havoc, and the cane has been recovering slowly.”
This decaying tower in the city of Artemisa marks one of the many mills no longer churning out raw sugar across the island.
There were once a hundred putting out product both for Cuban consumers and exports.
Yasen Sanchez lives nearby.
“After it closed, this ended. Before, life was different, there was sugar, there was everything. Now here, look, the ruins of the tower, and it is falling apart. This here has gotten bad, bad, bad.”
Now, production of cane is dominated by state mills in Cuba’s Communist-run economy.
The government said this week that with less cane, a record low of only 15 mills will be open for sugar production.
That’s down from 24 the year before.
The government says that since tough U.S. sanctions and an economic crisis sparked by COVID-19…
Food production and processing in Cuba has fallen over 40%.
Officials have not reported this year’s output, but a Reuters estimate of around 300,000 tons is similar to production in the late 1800s.
