Eastern Cuba Hit by Food Shortages

Foodstuffs are in short supply in Santiago de Cuba Province in the far southeast of Cuba, a legacy of Hurricane Sandy which raged through the area in October. 

The flooding and infrastructure damage caused by the hurricane dealt a grave blow to farmers in eastern Cuba, with large areas under crops wiped out. Fruit and vegetables have had to be brought in to Santiago de Cuba from other provinces, but they are in short supply.

“You can’t find anything,” local human rights activist Maylín Isaac said. “The state-run markets that should have a supply are empty. Not even the private ones have products. When malanga [root vegetable also known as eddoe] does turn up, it costs eight pesos a pound and no one can afford it.”

According to Arelis Rodríguez, a resident of Santiago de Cuba, “This food deficit has worsened a pre-existing crisis. People are desperate, and the government doesn’t seem interested in finding a solution.”

Alberto Ramírez, who lives in the Santa Bárbara neighbourhood in the Santiago de Cuba city, said most people were filling up on rice, though even that was expensive at 11 pesos a kilogram from private traders.

“You can see that wages don’t stretch that far,” he added. The average wage in Cuba is about 400 pesos a month, around 15 US dollars.

As for fresh produce, Ramírez said, most shops only had oranges that were well past their best.

The flooding increased the incidence of cholera, malaria and dengue fever in eastern Cuba, so the availability of clean water is a pressing concern.

“The drinking water is undrinkable because of the high chlorine level, but that’s how you have to drink it,” Isaac said. “And now there are food shortages, too.”

Officials in Havana, who asked to remain anonymous, said a lot of agricultural produce was spoiled while in storage, because there were not enough vehicles to transport it to provinces that needed it.

In Santiago de Cuba itself, local resident Ana Celia Rodríguez Torres, a resident in the province, confirmed foodstuffs often went to waste, and were taken either to a local pig farm or to an animal feed factory.

After the hurricane, eastern Cuba received assistance from a number of countries. Bolivia dispatched 120 ton of food and water to Santiago de Cuba, and Venezuela 150 tons of humanitarian aid goods. But locals say not all of this assistance has been handed out as it should have been.

“Some of the aid was sold to people at very high prices. The tinned bonito fish sent by Venezuela went on sale at 40 pesos a can, while [construction materials] went to the military reserve forces.”

Magaly Norvis Otero Suárez is a reporter for Hablemos Press, an independent news agency in Cuba. 

This article first appeared on IWPR's website.