Havana Cuba. — “Do you know who is selling sugar?” is one of the most frequently asked questions in Cuba today. If the quota of sugar that they sell monthly through the supply book was not enough a few years ago, when they gave five pounds per person, after they reduced it, in homes there is no sugar even to sweeten coffee (which is also scarce).
Until last month, the fee per person was three pounds of refined (white) sugar at six pesos a pound and one of turbinado (brown) sugar at five pesos. But this month they only sold a pound of each.
In some warehouses the full amount of sugar did not arrive last month and they told customers that they would complete the quota when “the missing” arrived. And they are still waiting.
About five years ago, liberated sugar was sold in the markets at a price of eight pesos for white sugar and six pesos for brown sugar. But soon they stopped selling it, and it was only necessary to count on the rationed one.
The price on the left that sugar currently reaches, when someone appears who has it to sell, is between 40 and 60 pesos per pound. In 1959 a pound of sugar cost no more than three cents.
I have seen signs in small self-employed establishments that sell light foods that say: “I buy sugar.” As there are no wholesale markets for these traders, they have to buy their sugar on the black market. And since they buy it expensive, that means they have to increase the price of the sweets, soft drinks and juices they sell.
Where there is sugar is in the MLC stores, but not everyone has the magnetic card to buy, nor does the relative abroad who sends them the money.
The shortage of sugar is a serious problem in Cuba. Cubans tend to consume a lot of sugar. They drink sugar water when they are hungry and nothing better is available. A meal isn’t complete without dessert, preferably a tasty homemade treat. And a party without cake is unthinkable.
In Cuba, soft drinks and ice cream are made sweeter than in other countries. That is why foreigners, accustomed to low-sugar foods, prefer to drink Coca-Cola and not the refreshing drinks that are made here.
The causes of this shortage of sugar are known to all. A little over two decades ago, as the price of sugar on the world market had dropped, the Commander in Chief, instead of waiting for it to rise again, came up with the crazy idea of dismantling more than half of the sugar mills in the country. Then, problems accumulated that ruined what was our first industry: lack of cane, low yields, lack of fertilizers, planting problems, misuse of sugarcane land, etc.
Ruined our sugar industry, countries like Brazil and the Dominican Republic dramatically increased their production and monopolized the markets that previously belonged to Cuba.
When the price of sugar on the world market increased again, Cuba was never able to recover its production.
In 1970, Fidel Castro became infatuated with carrying out the Ten Million Ton Harvest, which he claimed would lead Cuba out of underdevelopment. But that harvest was not achieved, and it ruined the Cuban economy. The Soviet Union had to come to the aid of the Castro regime, buying sugar from it in a subsidized way.
In the harvests of recent years, production does not exceed that of the harvests of the late nineteenth century.
Today, in the former sugar factory of the world, sugar is scarce. Sometimes they have had to import it from nothing less than France.
If the missing Celia Cruz were alive, her cry of “Azúcar!” she might add “where is she?”
OPINION ARTICLE
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