World Grain - May 2013 - 30

COUNTRYFOCUS

There hasn’t been a whole lot of wheat
trade in that timeframe, the last two to
three years.”
FLOUR MILLING
Cuba is reported to have expanded its
ﬂour producing industry, using imported
wheat. The Cuban news agency CAN
has reported that a national strategy to
replace imports means that the Cuban
ﬂour industry can now meet domestic
demand of around 150,000 tonnes,
According to the agency, the industry produced 100,000 tonnes of ﬂour
in 2010, a ﬁgure which increased to
139,000 in 2011. It said that the ﬂour
industry will produce 500,000 tonnes a
year by 2015.
“In order to achieve the production increase, the industry will replace old milling equipment in its facilities,” it said.
“The sector is also expected to strengthen
its economic performance, improve its
corporative image and achieve the full
certiﬁcation of its quality system.”
In an earlier report, the agency put
the total number of mills needed to
keep the country’s demand satisﬁed
at 10. It was announcing the planned
building of the 10th.
When Skalicky reported on the sector in 2010, there were ﬁve ﬂour mills
owned and operated by the Cuban Ministry of Food and one mill in Havana,
IMSA (Industrial Molinera de la Habana
S.A.), run by a joint venture operation
involving the Cuban government and a
Mexican company. IMSA was formed
by the Mexican company which has
controlling interest in the mill, and together with a Cuban holding company,
Coralsa, which is part of the Cuban
Ministry of Food (MINAL), the two
created the IMSA ﬂour mill in Havana.
All the mills were in port locations.
In a recent report on the food sector in
Cuba, the Reuters news agency described
how private food distribution networks
from the farm through to retail outlets are
emerging as the authorities “gradually dismantle the state’s monopoly on the purchase and sale of agricultural products.”
“The country’s ﬁrst wholesale produce
30

market is up and running on the outskirts
of Havana, and across the island farmers
report they are selling more of their goods
directly to customers, ranging from hotels
to individual vendors,” the report said.
“Those involved say the change is speeding the ﬂow of food to market, helping
end longstanding inefﬁciencies that often
left crops to rot in ﬁelds and putting more
money in the pockets of producers.”
“We purchased two old trucks this
year, in part to deliver produce to our
state clients in Camaguey,” Reuters quoted the president of a cooperative near
the city. “A few years ago we had to sell
everything to the state, which then sold
it to our clients a few days later. Now it
arrives fresh and we keep the 21% proﬁt
that went to the state wholesaler.”
Farm output, according to Reuters,
is up by just a few percentage points
since President Raul Castro replaced his
brother Fidel in 2008 and began agricultural reforms. “Local farmers and experts say resistant bureaucrats, cautious
leadership, the state’s continued monopoly on farm inputs and a lack of ﬁnancing are holding up growth,” the agency
said. “Yet, deregulation is gradually
taking hold and private supply chains,
whose participants were once labeled
‘parasitic middlemen’ and even criminals by authorities, are emerging, now
with the state’s blessing.”
Five years ago, 85% of all food produced in the country was contracted and
sold by the state, the report said.
By last year it had fallen to below
60%, according to the government.
Within a few years it is expected to bottom out at around 35%, mainly root vegetables, grains and export crops.
In a separate report, Reuters said that
Cuba planted biotech crops for the ﬁrst
time in 2012 as farmers there seeded
3,000 hectares of hybrid biotech maize.
An article on the Globalpost website
described the rationing system operated
by the Cuban authorities.
“State-subsidized bread is regarded
as a natural right in socialist Cuba,” it
said. “Neighborhood bakeries across the
island churn it out in blanched, spongy

loaves and two-foot torpedoes so rigid
they could practically whack a baseball.
“Every Cuban is entitled to at least
one bun-sized piece per day as part of
the island’s ration system, and bread
is such a staple of the Cuban diet that
long lines form outside government outlets for those wanting to buy more. But
with tens of thousands of new Cuban
entrepreneurs opening up private snack
bars, cafeterias and pizza stands as part
of President Raul Castro’s economic
reforms, the island’s state-run bakeries
have been coming up short lately. Suspicions have fallen on the new small businesses, which may be buying up more
and more ﬂour on the black market.”
The shortage at the state shops points
to an emerging problem with the Castro government’s plan to shed hundreds
of thousands of government employees
and create a new class of private entrepreneurs, it said.
“In the absence of a formal wholesale
market to supply the upstart businesses,
pilfering employees with access to state
supplies and stockrooms become the island’s de facto wholesalers,” it said.
ECONOMIC DECLINE
GOOD FOR HEALTH?
A study published recently in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) looked at the
effect of Cuba’s 1990s economic crisis
on health.
“Marked and rapid reductions in mortality from diabetes and coronary heart
disease were observed in Cuba after the
profound economic crisis of the early
1990s,” researchers from the University
of Alcalá in Spain said. “These trends
were associated with the declining capacity of the Cuban economy to assure
food and mass transportation in the aftermath of the dissolution of the former
Soviet Union and the tightening of the
U.S. embargo. Severe shortages of food
and gas resulted in a widespread decline
in dietary energy intake and increase
in energy expenditure (mainly through
walking and cycling as alternatives to
mechanized transportation).”
“The largest effect of this economic
May 2013 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com
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World Grain - May 2013

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