AREQUIPA, Peru – The Cuban government’s Habanos SA Corporation, the world leader in the marketing of premium tobacco, recently celebrated its 30th anniversary and has a record revenue of $721 million in 2024. Of these profits, Cuban farmers who grow and process the leaf receive only a small amount of profit.
With a presence in more than 130 countries on five continents, the company has an extensive portfolio of 27 premium brands, including the iconic Cohíba, Montecristo, Partagás, Romeo y Julieta, Hoyo de Monterrey and H. Upmann.
Maritza Carrillo González and Luis Sánchez-Harguindey told the state Cuban News Agency The company has tripled its consolidated turnover, demonstrating its strong position in the global market.
According to the source, among the most notable milestones of these decades is the launch of the Behike Line, from the Cohíba brand., considered one of the best creations in the world of premium tobacco.
This achievement, together with the introduction of the Reserva and Gran Reserva concepts, which use leaves aged for three and five years with the highest quality, are just some of the advances that have positioned the corporation at the top of the tobacco industry.
The Communications Department of Habanos SA points out as another of its most important successes The Cigar Festivalan event that has been bringing together distributors, fans, experts and celebrities from all over the world every year since 1999.
In the past, the festival has been attended by President Miguel Díaz-Canel and his wife Lis Cuesta, who have been seen dressed in elegant clothes, smoking cigars and sitting in front of a table full of drinks.
But the image of luxury enjoyed by Díaz-Canel and Cuesta contrasts with the conditions in which Cuban peasants subsist in the fields, who are not provided with a pair of boots or the appropriate clothing to work in the sun. Nor are they paid fairly, or on time.
Non-payments, low production and dissatisfaction
Some 187 kilometers from the lavish gala held in 2023, the producers, who continued to harvest one of the most famous tobaccos in the world with almost no inputs, had not yet received any part of the previous campaign. Nine months had passed since they delivered their crops to the company Tabacuba, and the percentage they were supposed to receive in MLC had still not been delivered to them. Every time they questioned the leaders of the province about the non-payment, the answer was the same: “there is no money.”
“When I see the country’s leaders, who don’t know what it means to work on the land, enjoying themselves at the Habanos Festival, while we peasants don’t get paid, I feel used,” says R, a 60-year-old producer from Pinar del Río who has dedicated his entire life to growing the leaf, and who asked to remain anonymous.
In May 2022, Habanos SA also made known The country earned 568 million dollars from tobacco exports, which represented 15% more income than the previous year. This money – in theory – was supposed to be invested in improving growing conditions and providing resources to producers, but the reality has been different.
In 2024, the corporation has broken its income record, but conditions and remuneration in the field are still far from fair.
In Sancti Spiritus, second largest producer Of the 2,260 hectares of tobacco that the Cuban regime plans to plant this year, farmers have only agreed to plant about 794 hectares on the island, which represents 35% of the estimated total.
In this regard, the agricultural director of the Tobacco Collection and Processing Company of Sancti Spíritus, Isidro Hernández Toledo, acknowledged that in the last three harvests the variety of tobacco known as sol en palo has decreased considerably.
“There is a delay. Tobacco was supposed to have been contracted between March and April, but by waiting for some incentive to be found for the sol en palo method, the contracting for the new season has been delayed,” said the official in reference to payment in dollars, a demand of the tobacco growers, who are compensated in Cuban pesos.
According to the director, a payment in MLC was “finally” approved and they estimate that a recovery can begin because it will somehow please the farmers. In any case, the money that the farmers get represents a trifle compared to the tens of millions that the regime pockets.
