The official press accuses 41% of Avila producers with electrified irrigation of “not contributing to the food of the people”
14ymedio, Madrid, 9 September 2024 – “For three months they stopped paying us in the national currency, and they have never paid us what we are owed for over fulfillment,” complains Juan Carlos Durán Rodríguez. The rancher, owner of cattle and land in Cienfuegos, launched the claim in a debate between the authorities and local producers prior to the congress of the official National Association of Small Farmers (Anap), where the impact of these non-payments was verified, which contributed to rice production decreasing by almost 98% between 2018 and 2023.
The official press echoed his complaint this Sunday, saying that Durán complies with the agreed milk delivery figures to the Escambray Dairy Products Company, with between 13 and 18 liters per day. According to September 5, the “accumulation of non-payments to rice and milk producers, along with the inconveniences of banking” are the main concerns expressed by the farmers of the municipality of Aguada de Pasajeros.
“By not having this money on time, we are almost forced to cut back on our duties, because we live from milk production; this is how we maintain the family, pay for electricity and invest, for example, in the fences, something very expensive, because a roll of wire costs up to 18,000 pesos,” Durán argues.
Their situation is, despite this, better than that of the rice growers, who have accumulated four months of non-payment by the state-owned Granas Agroindustrial Company, which says it has no liquidity. And it is no exception.
“Already last year I went for months without getting paid, and now it’s the same. It’s a very difficult situation, because I’m a major producer”
“Already last year I went five months without getting paid, and now it’s the same. It’s a very difficult situation, because I’m a major producer. I own more than three cabalerrías (126 hectares) of land, with high production costs that are around four million pesos. In addition, I have a family, equipment to fix, and the repair of a tractor today costs between 200,000 and 300,000 pesos,” says farmer Pedro López Izquierdo. “I don’t care about the price, ten pesos more or less doesn’t hurt; the damage is that they don’t pay, because that slows down production, and one lives from what he produces,” he summarizes.
Taymí Torres Machín, president of the Pedro Filgueiras Solís cooperative – which manages to comply with the projections despite everything – puts figures on the damage caused by those non-payments.
“Otherwise, we would have increases in rice production, but the reality is that we do not see solutions, and the farmers are very upset with these issues. In 2018 we contributed 68,000 quintals, but in the recent campaign we delivered only 160 [metric] tons,” equivalent to 1,600 quintals, which reflects a 97.7% drop in production in just five years.
Among those present at the meeting was Caridad Capote Core, deputy director of the Agroindustrial Grain Company, who tried to calm the rice farmers by telling them that a credit has been requested, and she hopes that the Wholesale Company of Food Products will pay off a debt worth 16 million pesos with which they hope to be able to pay what is due.
“You go to the ration store and there is never money; in the Bank they don’t have funds either, and this creates a lot of limitations, because we have to pay for things in cash”
The cooperative members also mentioned banking as a problem, especially because of the lack of mobile coverage in the area, although much more so because of the limitations when it comes to obtaining cash. “You go to the ration store and there is never money, and the Bank doesn’t have funds either. This creates a lot of limitations, because we have to pay for everything in cash. Fuel, when it appears “on the left,” (on the black market) is 8,000 pesos cash in hand,” says Durán Rodríguez.
Non-payments by the State have been, for years, one of the most frequent complaints of Cuban producers, many of whom choose to stop making these contracts and/or live by the “informal” market, although with the sword of Damocles permanently hanging over their heads. However, the reproaches of the regime do not cease. This same Saturday, the provincial newspaper of Ciego de Ávila, Invasor, published an editorial in which it accused the farmers of benefiting from the electrified irrigation systems provided by the Government but who “do not contribute as they should or could, because having to do and being able to do are phrases that are similar but do not mean the same,” it says.
Ciego de Ávila produced almost 62,000 [metric] tons of crops up to June that do not seem to be enough for the editor because, he says, “with what you have, you can do more. ” However, he admits that the so-called “technological package” is not being delivered and that the fuel is insufficient. From 2009 to date, there are 362 “electrified” agricultural producers in this province, of which 41% – according to a commission that has supposedly evaluated it – “do not contribute to the food of the people,” starting with 75 of them who have not delivered anything and an equal number who have not delivered a single quintal to the Acopio Company.”*
Seventy-five of them have not delivered anything and “an equal number have not delivered a single quintal to the Acopio Company”
According to the newspaper, this is a brake on “the transition to food sovereignty,” and an impediment to increasing production and stopping the dependence “on the food imports, which costs Cuba, just for the basic basket, more than 1.6 billion dollars,” according to data from the Ministry of Economy and Planning.
Despite the fact that private farmers – owners, usufructuary or cooperative members – contribute around 75% of the food, fruits and vegetables and 40% of the rice, according to the most recent annual data (from 2021), the Government continues to strengthen state control over these productions. In the latest resolution for the contracting and marketing of these products for 2025, the preamble indicates that agriculture must be oriented to “support the Plan for the Economy.”
*Translator’s note: Acopio is the state-owned company that manages the procurement and distribution of food in Cuba.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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