MIAMI, United States.- The debacle of the sugar industry in Cuba has put the regime in the position of ensuring that the next harvest will be “small” and “resources will be concentrated in fewer sugar mills to achieve greater efficiency.”
Under the title “Cuba is getting ready for a small but more efficient harvest”, the official newspaper Granma reported that Miguel Díaz-Canel said in a meeting on the preparations for the 2022-2023 contest that it will begin in November in 23 centrals of 13 territories of the country, a figure lower than the 26 centrals that were planned.
That is why, Díaz-Canel explained, that “we must ensure that they are efficient, that they have a level of resources that guarantee stable production.”
According to the Granma note, Julio Andrés García, president of the AZCUBA group, said “6,574,000 tons of cane must be milled and 455,198 tons of sugar produced, destined for the family basket and other consumption of the economy such as tourism, medicines , industrial productions and for export”.
“It is about planning the harvest so that it is objective, flexible and, although small, with good practices, concentrating resources in fewer plants to achieve greater efficiency,” added the official.
García assured, on the one hand, that the strategy is “to support the harvest in the real financing that may be available”, and on the other, that the main objective will be “to guarantee internal consumption and obtain derivatives of that production, such as animal feed.” , alcohols and honeys that allow an export plan depending on market prices”.
The Cuban sugar industry, in a progressive decline since communism came to power, registered this year the worst cane harvest in more than a century of history of this crop on the island.
However, Deputy Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca was able to say at the meeting cited by Granma that this harvest will be “the beginning of the sugar cane recovery in the country.”
Sugar production, which has been Cuba’s main export product for more than 300 years, is no longer even sufficient for domestic consumption in the country.
Last June, the government acknowledged that it would not meet its export commitments, which fundamentally affected China, one of its main economic partners.
The production plan planned for 2021 was fulfilled by 52%, figures that placed the recently completed harvest campaign as the worst in its history. Only 474,000 tons of sugar were processed.
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