{"id":247920,"date":"2022-01-11T19:32:40","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T00:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=247920"},"modified":"2022-01-11T19:32:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T00:32:40","slug":"to-recover-the-sugar-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/counterbalance\/to-recover-the-sugar-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"To recover the sugar industry?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hearing that today, many years later, we are going to \u201crecover,\u201d \u201csave\u201d the sugarcane industry gave me mixed feelings. Shame and rage, rage and shame.<\/span><\/p>\n

The text that we use as a bibliography for our students in the Cuban Economy course says on one of its pages: \u201cThe Cuban sugar agroindustry has been a fundamental part of Cuban nationality and the development of its culture for more than 400 years. Until 2002 it was present in 146 of the country\u2019s 169 municipalities and historically it directly employed more than 500,000 Cubans. Indirectly, it is considered that 2 million people were related to the Sugarcane Agroindustry. For more than 400 years it was the \u2018locomotive\u2019 of the national economy…representing more than 80% of its exports. Although it contributed to national development, on the other hand it made the country\u2019s economy very dependent on a single productive item. The high level of spending and the deterioration in efficiency conditioned the need to restructure the entire sugar agroindustrial sector in 2002-2005, but the potential for diversified development is evident.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But this story is difficult…<\/b><\/p>\n

That locomotive has been irreplaceable; no other sector has been able to do what the sugarcane industry did. The reasons, some historical, structural, temporary some others, are well known: the disappearance of a market with preferential prices, loss of safe and cheap sources of financing, loss of the maintenance system, technological backwardness, high costs, uncertainty in the world market.<\/span><\/p>\n

The industry\u2019s resizing\/reconversion program was explained many times. It was undertaken in two stages, the \u00c1lvaro Reinoso Task (I) and (II). There was a \u201cProgrammatic Document\u201d drawn up by the still Ministry of Sugar that explained the task. In short, the program consisted of:<\/span><\/p>\n

1- Reducing the maximum production capacity to 4 tons of sugar\/harvest.<\/span><\/p>\n

2- Selecting the best 70 sugar factories in the country for their capacity and their technical conditions and economic efficiency, with sugarcane areas on their best or aggregated lands. This is 38% of the total land of the sector.<\/span><\/p>\n

3- Another fourteen sugar factories would grind to obtain alcohol and whole molasses.<\/span><\/p>\n

4- Reaching an average of 54 tons per hectare<\/span><\/p>\n

5- Achieving sugar yields of 12%<\/span><\/p>\n

6- Having between 90- and 100-day harvests<\/span><\/p>\n

7- The lands freed from agricultural production (62%) would be used in other productions; livestock, various crops, forests.<\/span><\/p>\n

8- A total of 71 sugar factories would not continue grinding. These assets amounting to 900 million dollars would be constituted in a capital fund of the new enterprises that will be created.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, 25 bioenergy sugar factories would be built by 2030, of which only one exists today.<\/span><\/p>\n

It also assured that:<\/span><\/p>\n