Amid Reforms, Cubans Fret Over Fate Of Food Rations

Amid Reforms, Cubans Fret Over Fate Of Food Rations
by Nick Miroff
October 21, 2010

In Cuba, every person receives a basic monthly food ration from the
communist government. It's not enough to survive on, but no one starves,
either.

Now, with changes coming to the island's economy, the rations — a
hallmark of Fidel Castro's revolution — are also in doubt.

In every Cuban neighborhood, there's a government food pantry called a
bodega. A blackboard lists the available items and their prices.
Government clerks weigh out portions of rice, sugar, beans and other basics.

A customer displays his ration card as he waits to buy food at a
government store in Havana in 2009. The Cuban government has slowly been
chipping away at the rations system — and more changes appear to be
coming, worrying many Cubans.

In Havana's Vedado neighborhood, one dismal bodega is set up in the
ruined shell of a former supermarket that was long ago nationalized.
Cubans wander in carrying little booklets called libretas. Every
household has one. While the items aren't free, prices are so low
they're affordable even to ordinary Cubans earning less than $20 a month
on average. The government provides milk to pregnant women and children
up to age 7.

On a recent day, Julia Rivas is picking up rations for herself and her
daughter. She says she depends on the provisions to get by, even if they
don't last through the month.

"We get dish detergent, but it only comes every three or four or six
months," she explains.

The government of President Raul Castro now says it cannot afford to
maintain this system. More than 70 percent of the island's food is
imported, costing the cash-strapped government $1.5 billion a year.
Castro has been turning over idle state land to private farmers and
cooperatives, hoping they'll produce more, but so far the experiment
hasn't delivered.

Cubans supplement their diets mostly by shopping at produce markets.
They are among the few spaces set aside for private enterprise; one is
located next to the Vedado bodega. While it is filled with fresh local
items, prices are steep for Cubans on fixed incomes. The vendors are
widely despised for trying to cheat customers with faulty scales.

"A Cuba without coffee? I can't believe that they would cut it from the
ration book. That's something you don't mess around with."
- Patricia Rodriguez, a university student

Raul Perez, a 78-year-old retired pediatrician, says he can no longer
muster the energy to argue. "They never sell you the right weight for
what you are buying, so they are stealing your money. Before you buy it,
you know they will rob you, but you really can't do anything," Perez says.

Some Cubans resent the monotony of the rations and the government
paternalism they symbolize. But they are a lifeline for most people, and
one that has been steadily thinning.

While the government has not proposed an alternative to the ration
system, the availability of potatoes and peas was cut last year, and
their street prices have shot up since then. Sugar and salt rations have
also been reduced.

A major editorial last October in the Communist Party newspaper Granma
called for abolishing the ration system outright, a signal that it may
be only a matter of time.

Edenia River is picking up her family's monthly allotment of 6 pounds of
rice per person at the Vedado bodega. The rice is shipped to Cuba from
China. She says she would "die" without the subsidized food. Rivera buys
a pound of rice each day for her family and says she doesn't have the
extra 40 cents it would cost at market prices.

"I hope they never take the ration book away," she says.

Not everyone in Cuba needs the assistance, but even government critics
agree it would have to replace the current system with one that still
protects the neediest Cubans, including children. Only there's no income
tax system in Cuba, or way to assess who is poor, and who deserves help.
The government's new market-oriented reforms may increase productivity,
but inequalities will also widen, as Castro's egalitarian model further
unravels.

A classic Cuban espresso bar in Old Havana is one of the last good deals
around, selling shots of sweet cafecito for less than 5 cents.

But just as Cuba now has to import sugar, its coffee collapse is another
embarrassment. The island harvested fewer than 6,000 tons last year,
down from 60,000 tons a half-century ago, forcing the government to
spend $40 million on imported beans.

University student Patricia Rodriguez says she has heard the rumors that
coffee rations will be cut next. "A Cuba without coffee?" Rodriguez
asks. "I can't believe that they would cut it from the ration book.
That's something you don't mess around with."

Two other customers sipping espresso nearby say they expect the coffee
ration to disappear any day. But they shrugged off how Cubans might react.

Is there anything we can do about it? one of the men says. He just
shakes his head, and walks away.

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