Cuba to import in 2011 twice the rice it produces

Cuba to import in 2011 twice the rice it produces
Published December 13, 2010
EFE

Havana – The Cuban government will have to import in 2011 double the
amount of rice it produces in order to meet domestic demand, the
official weekly Trabajadores said Monday, citing the island's deputy
minister of agriculture.

"Again in 2011 the country will have to import almost double the rice
produced here," Juan Perez Lamas said at a meeting with growers,
according to the publication of Cuba's only legal trade union, the CTC.

Cuba needs "more people growing rice and selling it though various
channels, but with discipline," Perez Lamas said.

For its part, Trabajadores slammed the fact that a lack of resources,
general disorganization, and apathy toward such options as cutting by
hand, have caused "regrettable losses" in the rice fields.

"We're left with the impression that rice production goes at a faster
pace than the development of a national infrastructure to sustain it,"
the weekly said.

In that sense, the publication said that there are problems with
machinery like tractors, mills and dryers, and a "poorly maintained
network of canals between reservoirs and plantations" that loses half
the water meant for crops.

"Cuba now spends on producing the grain seven times more than Vietnam,"
Trabajadores said, while stressing the importance of "better planning."

It also said that in the new context of economic adjustments being
planned by the Raul Castro government, "it would be healthy to explain
to the grower just how much the government can promise him."

"It's absurd and anti-economic that we can't come up with the $250 that
it costs to produce a ton of rice here when it's needed, but we can find
the $500 it costs to bring it from Asia," the weekly publication said.

In 2009, the Agriculture Ministry's Rice Program launched a state plan
aimed at substituting 29 percent of imports that year and to reach 56
percent by 2013.

According to the state corporation Alimport, Cuba spent in 2009 more
than $2 billion on rice imports to guarantee supplies for the population.

According to official figures, the 11.2 million Cubans consume an
average of 11 pounds of rice per month, for an annual consumption of
more than 600,000 tons.

State-issued rationing cards guarantee each Cuban citizen 7 pounds of
rice per month at subsidized prices.

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