In Cuba, the distribution of basic foodstuffs is increasingly difficult

“We have to tell the truth, as hard as it is, things are bad. Many people have empty fridges,” says Linorka Montenegro, a 55-year-old stay-at-home mother. In Cuba, the state distribution of subsidized food, essential for the daily survival of the inhabitants, is accumulating difficulties.

Faced with its worst economic crisis in 30 years, the communist government is finding it increasingly difficult to provide these basic necessities, distributed according to the needs of each family by the “libreta” rationing system, introduced in 1963.

Last week, a cargo ship loaded with wheat was stuck in the port of Havana without being able to unload its cargo due to a lack of “financing” to pay for the goods, the Ministry of Food Industry said.

He then announced a temporary reduction in the weight of bread distributed daily, from 80 to 60 grams.

Cubans queue outside a bakery on September 17, 2024 in Havana (AFP/ADALBERTO ROQUE)

The island needs 3,000 tons of wheat per month to ensure the production of the bread that is distributed to Cubans every day. In July and August, the country was only able to buy 1,000 tons of wheat, and only 600 in September, according to the ministry.

“I’m allowed seven loaves of bread” a day, Rosalia Terrero, 57, who lives with six other members of her family in the Centro neighborhood of Havana, told AFP.

But “my grandchildren eat almost all of them,” the fifty-year-old emphasizes as she leaves a state bakery where the bread is sold at a symbolic price.

A Cuban woman eats a portion of bread in front of a bakery on September 17, 2024 in Havana (AFP/ADALBERTO ROQUE)

Rosalia Terrero herself works in a “bodega”, one of those grocery stores, present in every neighborhood, where residents come to buy other basic necessities at prices heavily subsidized by the government.

These foods represent the bulk of the food for the vast majority of Cubans, who cannot afford to go to the small private businesses authorized since 2021, whose prices are inaccessible to most.

For Rosalia Terrero, the elderly, who receive a meager pension, are those who suffer the most. “They are given only one loaf of bread (a day), very small, it is not enough for them,” she says.

– “Four months” –

The situation is hardly better for other basic products. At the beginning of September, cargo ships loaded with rice and salt were waiting in the ports of Havana and Santiago de Cuba (east), also due to non-payment.

A Cuban man shows the bread he receives daily with the ration book, on September 17, 2024 in Havana, (AFP/ADALBERTO ROQUE)

At the same time, the Minister of Internal Trade, Betsy Diaz, announced that in September there would be “no oil or coffee” distributed in subsidized stores, as was the case in August.

“My fridge is empty, there’s nothing,” laments Linorka Montenegro in the queue at the “bodega” in her neighborhood in Old Havana. She comes to pick up 2.5 kg of rice and a kilo of sugar, even though she is entitled to more, with four children and five grandchildren registered on her “libreta.”

“Things are going badly (…) I see it in my building, many people have empty fridges,” she says.

For four years, Cuba has been facing a tightening of the American embargo decided by Republican President Donald Trump (2017-2020), which his Democratic successor Joe Biden has hardly relaxed.

These sanctions come on top of a weak recovery in post-pandemic tourism and the country’s structural economic weaknesses, with agricultural production at its lowest and a dire shortage of foreign currency.

Cubans wait to receive a ration of subsidized food outside a “bodega” in Havana on September 17, 2024 (AFP/ADALBERTO ROQUE)

Cuba, which has not suffered such an economic crisis since the fall of its Soviet ally in the early 1990s, is also facing shortages of fuel and medicines in state pharmacies, while power cuts are a daily occurrence.

Last week, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez blamed the US embargo for much of the situation, noting that in one year Washington’s sanctions had cost the country more than $5 billion.

The minister estimated the annual cost of these subsidized foods at around $1.6 billion, “the equivalent of four months of blockade.”

© 2024 AFP

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