Cuba's sugar mills get new lease of life

22 May 2013 Last updated at 04:15 GMT



Cuba's sugar mills get new lease of life

Sarah Rainsford By Sarah Rainsford BBC News, Mejico



It is a sight the people of Mejico thought they would never see again -

sugar cane pouring onto a conveyer belt, beneath chimneys pouring smoke

into a bright blue sky.

Silent for seven years, the town's sugar mill has been given a new lease

of life.

Sugar was Cuba's biggest export until the 1990s, providing half a

million jobs.

But when the Soviet market disappeared and the world sugar price sank,

almost two-thirds of the island's mills had to close.

At those that remained, production plummeted. Weeds overran the cane

fields, and abandoned sugar plants - once the heart of many communities

- fell into ruin.



'Tough blow'



But Mejico is one of more than a dozen mills gradually being salvaged as

Cuba looks to capitalise on a recent rise in sugar prices and improved

yields in its canefields.

Converted slave barracks in Mejico, Cuba, in May 2013.



"When they said the mill would stop working, it was a tough blow," says

Ariel Diaz, who used to work as an engineer at the old mill before it

shut down in 2006.



"It really traumatised us," he says of its closure, which happened

almost overnight.



There had been a mill in Mejico since 1832. The original stone slave

barracks are still standing - converted into workers' housing.



"We were nothing without the mill. It was our life," Mr Diaz says, now

happy to be back in the noisy, steamy sheds shouting orders to his team

as huge metal cogs turn down below.



Centuries-old tradition



The re-opening has created some 400 new jobs in the mill itself. Sixteen

farmers' co-operatives are supplying it with cane.



Across Cuba, as mills closed, many people were redeployed to collective

farms; others were paid to study and re-qualify.



"Clearly people were affected, especially psychologically," a spokesman

for state sugar company Azcuba, Liobel Perez, accepts.



"The mills represent years, centuries, of tradition so it was very hard.

But steps were taken to help."



Just a short drive from Mejico, the chimneys of the Sergio Gonzalez mill

are still cold some 15 years after the last sugar rolled off the

conveyer belts.



Weeds poke out of holes in the concrete. The old sheds have been

partially dismantled and are rusting.



A sorry-looking stage has a faded pro-revolution slogan painted across

it: "Revolucion, Si!"



"All the families here lived off the mill, and life was much easier,"

recalls Argelio Espinosa, a mill mechanic for many years.



He now sells slush-ice drinks from a street cart, one of the small,

private businesses that communist Cuba now allows.



But sales in such a poor town are slow and Mr Espinosa echoes many who

say the mill closure brought other difficulties.



"When the mill was open there was always transport for the workers and

everyone used it. Now there's just two buses a day," he points out.



"It's the same with the water. When the mill was grinding, it needed

water and we were never short. Now we have problems," he adds.



The locals talk of how new businesses, like a spaghetti factory, were

brought to other former sugar towns.



In Sergio Gonzalez, the luckiest now hitch a ride 80km north for jobs in

the tourist resort of Varadero.



Challenges ahead



By contrast, there is a fresh buzz of activity in Mejico.



In the nearby fields, workers have been rushing to cut the cane before

the weather turns. A shiny new Brazilian harvester charges forward,

swallowing up the cane as it goes.



It is one of four machines Cuba invested in for the mill re-opening, far

more efficient than the ageing, Soviet alternative.



There have been teething troubles with the re-opening.



New machine parts arrived late, the workforce is young and

inexperienced, and production is below target. Senior staff have slept

little, under pressure to perform.



But the whole community is willing this to succeed. Some pensioners are

helping out at the mill for free, passing their expertise to a new,

young generation.



And many sugar workers who took up farming when the mill closed have

hung up their spades and returned.



"They like the mill. It's a tradition here, more than anything. And it's

more secure work, right next to their homes," explains mill director

Jesus Perez Collazo.



"There are a lot of challenges. The harvest is not as good as we wanted

but the country needs to produce sugar, and we can help," he says.



China buys 400,000 tonnes of sugar from Cuba a year; now production is

increasing, Azcuba says international brokers are also knocking at the door.

New life



With the revamped mills back online, the eventual target is three

million tonnes per year, though persistent inefficiencies mean this

year's harvest will fall well below that.



"Sugar is once more becoming one of our principal export goods and that

will be reinforced in the years to come," argues spokesman Liobel Perez.



Despite the difficulties, those are welcome words in Mejico.



As the day cools, men gather in the main square watching the mill smoke

rise and discussing the harvest.



For some, like 68-year old Joel, the re-opening has meant coming out of

retirement.



"I need the money," he says bluntly. At $35 a month, his mill salary is

more than three times his pension.



Others take a broader view. "There was no life, no movement here without

the mill," one man comments. "This place was like a cemetery."



Now Mejico is shuddering back to life.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22606943