That pork is getting more every day absent from the markets It is something that any ordinary Cuban knows these days. The strange thing is that it is an authority who certifies it. This Monday, Osvaldo Surí González, program coordinator of the provincial government of Cienfuegos, categorically did so. “Raw pork meat in quantities and pounds cannot be sold anywhere because it does not exist,” he said in statements. collected by official means, presumably referring to state production.
Therefore, said the official, “do not despair” or “queue”, or “shifts” or “listed in any box. [carnicería] of Cienfuegos “.
To this he contrasted that “there is the goodness and willingness of various producers” to sell in a “controlled liberated” manner, although only in the provincial capital, a pound of “clean beef” to each child under seven years of age, as well as to the pregnant women, those over 60 and a total of 2,324 “vulnerable families” registered by the municipality’s Social Security. “We can also do that,” Surí boasted.
The strategy of offering this product seems to be generalized by the end of the year, to compensate for the lack of pigs
In addition, they will offer the same prerogative to “more than 200 combatants of the Cuban Revolution who are bedridden today,” whom they even plan to serve at home. “We have a space there in the box that we are going to put it in and if we have to take it home, we will create the link system to take it home,” said the official, who pointed out that an agreement was reached with producers to sell beef at 100 pesos per pound.
The strategy of offering this product seems to be generalized by the end of the year, to compensate for the lack of pigs, whose price, when they appear, ranges from 200 pesos a pound of 19 and B, in Havana, to 270 pesos of the platforms of Cienfuegos.
A few days ago, the governor of Villa Clara, Alberto López Díaz, announced via Twitter that he was in Macún, “together with the directors of Agriculture, managing beef and equine meat for the assurances of the New Year’s Eve Fair”. And he added: “It will be sold in bags of one and a half kilograms.”
In cities like Cárdenas, Matanzas or Santiago de Cuba, the pound of pork is 200 pesos, and although it does not justify the prices of meat, Justina, who has always had “a little pig in the backyard of her house to eat meat every 31 December “, he assures that the current price has to do with the cost of the food to raise the pigs and he does not doubt that by the end of the year it will rise more.
“About 20 pounds of feed are currently in Santiago at 650 pesos. With this value there is no one who raises an animal,” complains the housewife who lives in the Santiago town of El Caney and has to buy on the black market because the State does not market this product. “Life is hard. Do I give 650 pesos every week for feed? There is no one who can handle this train. Because the pig is not the only one who eats, a chicken that you have there in the yard is also fed,” he adds. “Before, I cooked food, bought some meats and boiled them on a wood stove to increase with the feed, but there aren’t even any meats in this country anymore.”
“About 20 pounds of feed are currently in Santiago at 650 pesos. With this value there is no one who raises an animal,” complains the housewife who lives in the town of El Caney
Although by the end of the year it is common for the price of pork to rise, since it constitutes the star dish of the dinner on December 31, this month has reached its all-time high since agricultural markets were authorized on the Island in 1994 privately managed after years of state control over agricultural trade.
The lack of food for animals is, the authorities have recognized, one of the causes of the decline in pig production.
In order to make this meat cheaper and increase productivity, it was announced a few weeks ago that the state company Holpor, located in Holguín, was going to recover the recipe for liquid feed for pigs, which was stopped manufacturing since the Special Period, given the figures disastrous. This year and only in that province, it is expected to reach 2,566 tons of pork meat compared to the 8,625 planned.
The recovery of pig farms in the State that were not exploited for a long time is one of more than 60 government initiatives to stimulate food production.
On that occasion, Holpor also said that he did not rule out selling very young pre-fattening pigs to private producers who had suffered in the last year the interruption of the breeding and breeding chain due to the lack of food for the animals.
The complaint of these producers is also known. As El Pana, an Artemiseño producer who dismantled his pig pen more than a year ago due to lack of feed, explained to this newspaper, “once you eat the female before putting her on the mount and taking her offspring, everything is over.” The sale of young specimens by the State is already made to cooperatives and state farms but it is still under study to extend it to private ones.
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