Avellon Williams
HAVANA, CUBA – According to reports, Cuba’s iconic sugar harvest fell just short of the communist-run government’s target for this year, further attacking the country’s already-crippled economy.
The 2021-2022 harvest, which is approximately 474,000 tons, just achieved 52% of the season’s goal, Granma said. It is nearly half the rate of crop production of 800,000 tonnes last year, which was already the worst since 1908.
A spokesman for Azcuba, the state-run sugar company, attributed the shortfall primarily to input shortages, such as oxygen for sugar production, fertilizers, pesticides, fuel and spare parts for machinery and equipment.
“The financial factor was among the most influential in the results of the harvest, exacerbated by the intensification of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade of the US Government against the island,” the Granma report said.
There are only 37% of the necessary herbicides and pesticides available for use this season, according to the report.
The spokesman also pointed out problems with “administrative behavior, labor conditions, and technical discipline,” all of which he said remain unresolved.
Sugar remains a source of pride for Cuba, essential to the production of the island’s iconic rum as well as a source of foreign exchange and employment in the island’s poor agrarian interior.
Alejandro Gil, Cuba’s economy minister, said in December that his country planned to produce 911,000 tonnes of sugar this year, of which 500,000 tonnes would be used for domestic consumption and the rest for exports.
Grandma pointed out that despite the steep drop in output, the state sugar company had secured enough raw sugar to supply Cubans with their state-supplied rations through 2022.
Also planned was Cuba’s sale of 400,000 tonnes to China, as part of a long-standing agreement. The report did not specify what had happened to the deal.
