14ymedio, Havana, 27 April 2025 — No Cuban who has received the tiny tins of sardines from Venezuela for the basic food basket would think that behind the scarce food, with a strong flavour, there is a whole sordid web of Nicolás Maduro’s government endangering the species and keeping the fishermen starving. Venezuela takes sardines out of its own mouth to give them mainly to Cuba, headlines an article in an independent media on Sunday, showing that both countries have corruption and hunger in common.
In addition to the ban on sardine fishing that runs from December to March, Venezuela has also banned sardine exports. However, as Armando.info points out, the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture has itself broken the rule and exported thousands of tonnes of the fish to the international market since at least 2021.
Between then and August 2024, 73% of these exports – some 1,409 tonnes – went to Cuba. The shipments were always of canned product and were mostly marketed by the Ministry of People’s Power for Fisheries and Aquaculture itself.
It is also surprising that the United States is the second largest buyer of sardines from Venezuela, although with just a third of the tonnage delivered to Cuba.
As cryptic as Havana, Caracas keeps many of its export records outdated.
As cryptic as Havana, Caracas keeps many of its export records outdated, and sardines are not included in its list of 24 marine species in the 2024 and 2025 Exportable Supply Catalog. On paper, everything seems to be operating according to the law, but statistics from other sources, such as the United Nations Comtrade, among others consulted by Armando.info , “unequivocally certify that Venezuela is indeed selling sardines to other countries,” the outlet reports.
The platform explains that both the ban and the sardine export ban were imposed in 2017 due to the species’ rapid decline in Caribbean waters since 2005. In addition to its use as bait for catching other species or for preparing certain foods, sardines represent “the most important source of low-cost animal protein for Venezuelans.” Therefore, it argues, their preservation was not just a whim.
Armando.info offers figures to prove it: according to the latest available official data, in the first half of 2023 Venezuela caught 29,000 tons of sardines, 15% more than a year earlier. But compared to the 200,000 obtained in 2005—when the so-called sardine crisis began—the number is minuscule.
The 1,932 tons exported between 2021 and 2024, valued at more than $1 million, were a small figure compared to the amount used for domestic consumption. However, Armando.info warns, they could have been used to produce canned food for a subsidized food program.
The Maduro government, a faithful apprentice of Havana, has covered up exports while promoting initiatives to achieve food sovereignty and protect the sardine population. Last April, the outlet reports, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, along with the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, announced the “Venezuela Eats More Fish” operation to stimulate “exclusive domestic consumption” of sardines.
“Behind the rhetoric, consumption was not ’exclusively national’: contrary to official regulations, exports were taking place.”
“However, behind the rhetoric, consumption was not ’exclusively national’: against official regulations, exports were taking place,” Armando.info reports.
The platform also highlights the opinion of Juan José Cárdenas, an oceanographer and fisheries expert who believes that it is “unacceptable that a country with high levels of malnutrition and a food crisis is exporting the main animal protein and the one with the most affordable price for Venezuelans.”
According to 2024 records from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 24% of Venezuelan women between the ages of 15 and 49 suffer from anemia, and the number has increased since 2021, when sardine exports began. The number in Cuba is similar, at 20%.
Venezuelan sardines arriving in Cuba are sold primarily through the rationed market in modules that sometimes include pasta or rice donated by other countries. It’s also common to find cans of the El Faro and Maripiar brands, yellow, red, or green, on the shelves of stores selling freely convertible currency (MLC). In tomato sauce or with vegetable oil, however, the product isn’t cheap when sold in foreign currency, at a price that exceeds two dollars per unit.
It’s not about robbing one saint to pay another, as the saying goes, because the sporadic canned goods distributed in Cuba and their meager contents do not solve the lack of protein on an island that, by definition, should have plenty of fish.
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