Potatoes are rotting in Cuba amid a critical food situation

Between the lack of food production in the Cuban fields and the thousands of tons of some products, such as potatoes or tomatoes, that year after year spoil without ever reaching the Cuban table, it is not known where we will end up. This was recently reflected by the state agency ACN.

First of all, the potato crop in that central province ended up below expectations, at nearly 6,000 tons, which looks like numbers, but it’s plain and simple food missing from the table. The justifications are “bad weather”, sometimes droughts, and other floods, as well as lack of resources, especially herbicides.

Raul Mongoya Rodriguez, specialist of the Regional Delegation of Agriculture in the cultivation of potatoes, Certain Due to the heat, extremely high temperatures, and rains that stopped harvesting for up to 10 days, many of these embers were lost. Acopio lost about 30% of the crop, with over 5,000 tons of rotten potatoes.

Why do potatoes rot in Cuba?

Thus, the food required did not reach the small squares, nor did it reach the levels that are sent to other provinces such as Havana, nor what Ceballos industrial entity needs of the well-known “french fries”, which are mainly sold in stores in freely convertible currency (MLC).

Monguya Rodriguez specified that in order to comply with potato shipments to Camaguey, Las Tunas, Guantanamo and Granma, as well as selling at least 12 pounds of potatoes per capita in Ciego, they have reduced quantities of seeds, ceballos and select fruits.

What happens in Ciego de Ávila is a reflection of what happens in the rest of the country where this food is grown. According to official figures, in 2022 potato production across Cuba will reach barely a third of what was achieved in 1995, when the island was going through one of the worst economic crises in its history. Nowadays, it doesn’t even reach those levels.