(EFE).- Hurricane Ian has dealt a “devastating blow” to the cultivation of the most select tobacco in Cuba, reported the official press, which speaks of great material damage and the loss of thousands of tons of raw material.
Ian – with category three, intense rains and winds of up to 200 kilometers per hour – caused massive damage, “both in tons and in quality of a crop that brings in hundreds of millions of dollars each year for exports,” according to the newspaper Granma officer.
Ian caused massive damage, “both in tons and as a crop that brings in hundreds of millions of dollars in exports every year.”
the digital medium Cubadebate He also reported the destruction of a large part of the infrastructure of the tobacco sector in Pinar del Río, the province where a large part of Cuban tobacco is grown and where the raw material for the most sought-after cigars comes from.
The delegate of Agriculture of Pinar del Río, Víctor Fidel Hernández, told Granma that “it is the biggest blow that the tobacco infrastructure has suffered throughout its history”.
In the main tobacco-producing region of the country, 90% of the around 12,000 natural cure houses, where tobacco leaves are stored for drying, have been damaged.
These adversities also caused “about 11,000 tons of tobacco to get wet” that were in the process of being cured, so many of them will have to be discarded.
Curing houses and other facilities should be repaired for the next harvest, which was scheduled to start on October 20. For that they estimate that some 170,000 cubic meters of wood and 600 tons of nails will be necessary.
This blow to the sector occurs at an already delicate moment for the Cuban tobacco sector. From January to June, the Cuban state-owned tobacco company produced less than half of what was planned, due to lack of basic supplies, logistical problems and breakdowns, among others.
Curing houses and other facilities should be repaired for the next harvest. For this, they estimate that some 170,000 cubic meters of wood and 600 tons of nails will be necessary.
The situation, a continuation of the one experienced in 2021, has caused “instability” in the “distribution in the retail sales network” of tobacco within Cuba, it acknowledged this August Granma.
Tobacco, which employs some 200,000 workers – 250,000 at the peak of the harvest – is one of the largest sources of income for Cuba.
Production went from 32,000 tons in 2017 to 25,800 in 2020, according to official data and had, in 2021, one of its worst years for the Cuban countryside in the last decade, the Minister of Agriculture, Ydael Pérez Brito, recently assured.
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