Скачать или смотреть Cuban farmers struggle despite agriculture reform

(25 Aug 2022)

FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4394159

RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Havana - 1 August 2022
1. Various tomato planting at the Jesus Maria farm
HEADLINE: Cuban farmers struggle despite agriculture reform
2. Various Sánchez checks tomato planting while talking to AP
ANNOTATION: Lázaro Sánchez worries about trying to grow crops at his farm on the outskirts of Havana.
A shortage of farm supplies and machinery has left his crop fields empty.
3. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Lázaro Sánchez, owner Jesus Maria farm:
"Food we should have planted already is food we will not have to eat in 4 months."
4. Various of price listing for various items
ANNOTATION: Cuba's government last year approved a package of 63 reforms meant to make it easier and more profitable for producers to get food to consumers.
But Cubans in the cities are still struggling with shortages of food and soaring prices.
5. Various empty baskets in state agromarket, price list
6. Various Rodríguez buying vegetables
7. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Manolo Rodríguez, retired:
"Everything is super expensive. And if you don't buy it, you don't eat."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Havana - 29 July 2022
ANNOTATION: The island spends about $2 billion a year of its scarce foreign currency importing foods.
Though authorities say about $800 million of that could be produced at home under the right conditions.
8. Various farm workers moving herd of buffaloes to the river
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Havana - 13 July 2022
9. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Armando Miralles, director of organization Ministry of Agriculture:
"If we had the necessary supplies, and technological development here, there would be no need for a Ministry of Agriculture."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Havana - 29 July 2022
ANNOTATION: The pandemic and hardened economic sanctions under the mandate of former U.S. President Donald Trump have aggravated the shortage of fruit and even pork meat, a staple of the Cuban diet.
10. Various farmer picking guavas and avocados
11. Various planted fields, coconut tree
STORYLINE:
First, it was impossible to find fuel or seeds to plant.
Later his name wasn't on a list of farmers eligible to rent tractors from the state.
Now Lázaro Sánchez fears the current tropical rainy season will hinder his ability to work the land.
While Sánchez worries about trying to grow crops at his farm on the outskirts of Havana, Cubans in the cities are struggling with shortages of food and soaring prices.
To address such problems, Cuba's socialist government last year approved a package of 63 reforms meant to make it easier and more profitable for producers to get food to consumers - measures such as allowing farmers greater freedom to choose their crops and letting them sell more freely, at higher prices.
They are the latest in a series of highly touted changes adopted over the past 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc stripped Cuba of its most important sources of aid and trade.
Officials have eroded the dominance of state farms and encouraged more semi-independent cooperatives.
They have given farmers greater land use rights and loosened restrictions on sales.
But none of those efforts has yet been able to solve the island's chronic agricultural woes.
Sánchez, for example, can now sell most of the vegetables he produces himself instead of being forced to sell them to the state at fixed prices, though it still takes a reduced share.
He could even set up his own roadside stand if he chooses. His power and water bills have been cut.
But farmers say the measures are still not sufficient to overcome obstacles.
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