The State wants to avoid “intermediaries” and make sure that the fuel reaches the tobacco companies.
14ymedio, Havana, September 21, 2025 — The news published week after week in the official press about Tabacuba begins to have a pattern: fearing that tobacco production will fall and with it the large hard currency revenues it generates, the State has begun to provide resources to ensure this year’s harvest. Last Friday, the local radio station Radio Guamá reported that Pinar del Rio now has five new trucks, from the Chinese brand Howo, to be used to delivering fuel to the tobacco companies.
The vehicles are added to others that the company already made available to the producers in 2024, making a total of 11. The objective, the official press tirelessly repeats, is to “eliminate intermediaries in the process and avoid diversions.”
“The Tabacuba business group provided Pinar del Río with a new batch of fuel trucks that guarantee direct delivery to the farmer on his farm,” said Radio Guamá, which avoided clarifying whether it was delivered to the local government, to Cupet or, most likely, if the trucks are under the control of the company.
The trucks, the authorities predict, “will have a great economic impact, because before the implementation of the measure, studies concluded that farmers were only receiving 40% of the diesel intended for the growing.” It is not clear where the rest went.
Tabacuba also delivered “12 tractors — also Howo — with trailers, which will ensure the extraction of resources destined for tobacco activity from the port of Mariel to the different territories.” The fact that the company wants to make sure that the logistics of tobacco also runs on its own creates doubts about its confidence in State “intermediaries” to take care of such a valuable product as cigars and even the delivery of resources to the farmers.
In total, said Marino Murillo, president of the group, it is expected that at least 7,000 growers will benefit from the new acquisitions
In total, said Marino Murillo, president of the group, at least 7,000 growers are expected to benefit from the new acquisitions. “We now have the fuel for the new campaign. It only has to be distributed and used efficiently. The fewer intermediaries, the more efficiency. And with these fuel trucks, we will have an advantage. The fuel will be loaded into Cupet’s large tanks, and we will deliver it directly to the producer’s farm,” he said.
As a final gesture, adds the press, Tabacuba donated two solar panels to the province’s funeral homes.
The sudden deployment of resources to assist the tobacco growers, who have been complaining for years about the lack of means to care for the crops, is part of a “financing scheme implemented by the group,” explained the authorities. As part of that plan, the first Freely Convertible Currency (MLC) supply store exclusively for tobacco growers was also opened on Friday in Pinar del Río.
Murillo himself was present at the inauguration and celebrated the more than “100 inputs and products necessary to ensure the tobacco production and improve the living conditions of producers” were made available to growers. The shared images show mostly common hardware items such as brushes, hammers and screwdrivers, more useful for the machinery than for the harvest itself, and which easily fill a list of 100 products.
The most attractive offers, which sparked interest among those who saw the publication on social networks, are water pumps and especially power generators, although the models exhibited use diesel, a fuel that is difficult to obtain.
La prensa oficial también mencionó que los kits de paneles solares, cemento y aparatos eléctricos también se comercializarán
The official press mentioned that solar panel kits, cement and electrical appliances will also be sold
The official press mentioned that solar panel kits, cement and electrical appliances will also be sold at a different location.
A few weeks before, in early September, a “development program for the growers of Sancti Spíritus began, for the intensive production of covered tobacco,” which is grown under a cloth cover that filters sunlight.
The initiative “now brings together some 20 producers,” for whom the company provides all the “scientific and technical advances necessary to obtain high-quality covered tobacco for export.” The process goes from planting the seeds to curing the tobacco, in steps detailed by the development director of the Tobacco Collection and Profit Company, Geisa Calero de la Paz.
To this investment is added another stimulus that the press promoted with a lot of hype. At the end of August, Tabacuba delivered six modern Mercedes-Benz to growers in order to “encourage tobacco production,” although the cars were paid for out of their own pockets and in MLC.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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