{"id":250680,"date":"2022-03-22T16:59:18","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T20:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=250680"},"modified":"2022-03-22T16:59:18","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T20:59:18","slug":"lets-talk-about-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/counterbalance\/lets-talk-about-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s talk about agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"

That the year 2021 <\/span>has been one of the worst<\/span><\/a> in the Cuban agricultural sector was to be expected. This sector has accustomed us to its performance being far from the approved plans and, above all, far from the expectations of the population. What was different in 2021 is that \u201cweather issues\u201d were not high on the list of causes of poor performance. This year, the rain regime was not so bad, and none of the cyclones, always expected, came close enough to cause major damage that would affect the sector\u2019s results by several percentage points. But the sector had to face other hurricanes, \u201cthe tightening of the blockade, the pandemic, the economic crisis and the implementation of the monetary reorganization.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It is true, however, that geography matters. Being an elongated archipelago from east to west, located in the tropics, with just a few mountains below 2,000 meters, makes our agriculture very seasonal, and the variety of productions is relatively limited due to this fact. It also makes the conservation of agricultural products a challenge. Cuba is not the only country subjected to conditions of this type, but it is an objective fact that other countries have solved it better than us.<\/span><\/p>\n

That after more than 60 years of transformations, the Cuban agricultural sector continues to be a factor of uncertainty and instability and steadily contributes to increasing our food dependency gives us much food for thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our agriculture comes from a dichotomous productive structure, on the one hand, large estates dedicated to export crops with a certain financial leverage and a relatively \u201csafe\u201d market \u2014the United States; on the other hand, thousands of small farmers, sharecroppers, and day laborers produced for a relatively small national market, highly concentrated in the capital of the republic and in the six provincial capitals. An agriculture with backward production technologies, with very little or no incorporation of science and technology, and with high levels of exploitation, and very precarious living conditions for an immense mass of rural inhabitants.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was not by chance that the Revolution began there. The agricultural sector, before 1989, was the direct recipient of multiple transformations, some tremendously profound, and the indirect beneficiary of many others. I\u2019ll list some of them:<\/span><\/p>\n