Sancti Spíritus/The question asked this Tuesday Granma It is not usual in the official press, but it is what all Cubans with average salary are made: “Can you buy eggs, one day, at affordable prices?” Between 90 and 110 pesos today costs a single egg, remember the note, that is, between 2,700 and 3,330 the cardboard of 30 units.
The product is sold at $ 5.95 in state stores in foreign exchange, the text points out, which recognizes that in national currency it is offered almost exclusively in private shops, and wonders: “Where do the eggs that are sold in the MSMEs come from, which is where that offer is with the prices mentioned?”, They write, explain: “That is a question that many people are asked daily, especially when the egg has never been seen again. regulated, or at moderately accessible prices. ”
The painful poultry situation on the island is a fact that neither Granma can hide
To find out, they ask in a private store, where they respond what is well known by consumers: that some They are imported from the Dominican Republic and others produce “here.”
The painful poultry situation on the island is a fact that or Granma You can hide. Thus, they point out that in the last week’s economic report Before Parliament it was clear that, in the first half of the year, egg production was “the most affected agricultural line.”
Jorge Luis Parapar López, president of the Business and Bird Business Group (Gealav), belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture, exposed it without ambiguity in his statements to the newspaper: “Poultry production in the country today is like never before, we have a very complex, very unfavorable situation.”
“More than two million chickens died last year”
In the interview, the official argued that “the lack of financing for the purchase of raw materials and feed for bird feeding”, which “reached its most critical point” in October and November last year, caused more than 1,300,000 laying hens to be lost. More than two million chickens, he also said, died last year.
Therefore, continued, they decided to establish “a new management model” to “stop the decrease in mass.” This consisted, basically, to ally with private, mixed companies and “some state companies”, such as Tabacuba, not in vain one of the few companies of the Cuban state that do have benefits. “They have liquidity, that is, money to import,” he said.
“They put the food, and we put the chicken, technology and labor.” In this scheme, he said, the expenses are divided, although he granted that “what is better is the feed.” Of course, it made clear: “Poulticulture is still state.”
“Everything is imported” regarding feed production
However, he said, “everything is imported” in terms of the production of feed, not only corn or soybeans, but the “foresight”, the vitamins and minerals that the chicken needs so that the egg contains all the proteins and nutrients that it must contribute. “The chicken is a very demanding animal in that sense; if you don’t give it what it carries, it does not put,” he told Granma Parapar López, who exemplified the matter telling that last year, they were forced to “mutilated”, which was missing a vitamin, and that already influenced the setting.
In the same way, he said that they began to produce feed on Cuba “from a mixed company with a Brazilian entity”, but that “at the moment the production is stopped.”
The price of the “regulated egg” is two pesos when the cost of production is 8.65. “We are destined to lose”
The most important thing, he insisted, is that there are more chickens, hence for this year it is expected that “the income from the tobacuba scheme” will only be dedicated to “genetics, players, beginnings and developments.” Last June, he said, the first additions of young animals began and “if they keep the financing schemes so far,” he promised, in the last quarter of the year they can expand the distribution of eggs to “other population groups”, such as children up to 10 years.
The price of the “regulated egg” is two pesos when the cost of production is 8.65. “We are destined to lose,” the official lamented.
Despite the promises of recovery, who know from within the farms are pessimistic. “Every time a commission goes to evaluate how to rescue production, but they get fed up with the snack and leave while everything stays the same,” he says 14ymedio A former worker in one of these plants in Sancti Spíritus, where, he says, “they are letting destroy” the industry.
All farms in the province are stopped
Years ago, he continues, the production was “immense”, which was evidenced in the four shifts that he had used in 24 hours. Now – and “from before the Covid,” he says – all the farms of the province are stopped. Only one, “that of the military on the Zaza road,” is operational, but is not destined for sale: “that does not go to another place, is self -consumption.”
The reason offered by the woman is the same as the head of the Gealav: the lack of feed. “There was a moment that began to use the one that entered for the shrimp, but since the shrimp is exported immediately they took the tit,” says the same source, referring to the crustacean cultivation in Sancti Spíritus.
The provincial press either covers reality. The price of eggs was precisely the reason for a Row in line From the dollar store the time suffered by an official journalist, Mary Luz Borrego. In a critical text, he made the chronicle of the incident, from which he came out with hematomas and having witnessed corruption among the “relatives” of commerce: “More than three and a half hours of battle in a kind of Roman coliseum, between emels and abuses that not only mellar the body, but also the spirit of those there we would attend.”
