To promote a nonviolent transition to a Cuba that respects human rights, political and economic freedoms, and the rule of law.
How communist central planning creates shortages of flour and milk in Cuba today
Powdered milk and flour: two scarce items in Cuba today
Havana on March 4, 2024 confirmed it had sought help from the World Food Program to guarantee the supply of subsidized powdered milk for children. On February 24, 2024 Emerio Gonzalez Lorenzo, president of the "Grupo Empresarial de la Industria Alimentaria" (GEIA) [Food Industry Business Group] which is under the Cuban government's "Ministerio de la Industria Alimenticia" (MINAL) [ Ministry of the Food Industry ] announced that "there is little bread in Cuba due to a lack of flour," and that this situation would continue until the end of March 2024. Official press channels made no mention of the "25,000 tons of wheat donated by the Russian government that arrived in mid-January" which "exceeds the 20,000 tons that, authorities assured [on February 24th], are necessary to cover the rationed daily bread rolls for a month. If this is the case, the shipment of Russian wheat should have been enough to supply the stores for the remainder of this month and the next", reported 14ymedio.
The suspension of bread from the ration book, announced by the Cuban government, is not due to U.S. sanctions as the Cuban dictatorship claims. First, Havana "requested (World Food Programme) assistance for the purchase of powdered milk in order to guarantee supply to Cuban boys and girls," state-run media outlet CubaDebate reported on March 4, 2024, and added that, "a ship carrying 375 tons of powdered milk is set to arrive in the coming days from Brazil as a result of Cuba`s request to the World Food Programme." Cuban officials on the same day acknowledged that the Cuban government "had also purchased 500 tons of milk from the United States, under exceptions that allow for the sale of agricultural products, as well as from Canada and Brazil."
The US State Department in its fact sheet on the "Provision of Humanitarian Assistance to Cuba" clearly states: "While the embargo remains in place, the U.S. government prioritizes support for the Cuban people, and U.S. law and regulations include exemptions and authorizations relating to exports of food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods to Cuba, as well as disaster response."
Trade in mainly agricultural products with Cuba amounted to $400 million in 2023, in contrast to only $241.8 million during the last full year of the Obama Administration's thaw with Havana in 2016. Between 2000 and January 2024 the Cuban government purchased $7,647,000,300 in U.S. goods which the vast majority of purchases in agricultural goods.
Chart prepared by CFC intern Carlos Martinez.
The shortage of bread is due to the fact that of the five mills to turn wheat to flour in Cuba, only the one currently operational is in Cienfuegos. There is no shortage of wheat, but of flour due to the Cuban government's monopoly over the means of production, and its gross incompetence, and inefficiency.
This is compounded by the regime's track record of giving priority for supplies of flour for tourists in luxury hotels, compared to the hunger of Cuban families who also suffer blackouts, piles of garbage on corners with infestations of mice, mosquitoes and cockroaches, plus sewage leaks and lack of drinking water.
During the next few days the dimension of the disaster will be appreciated. In fact, in several provinces they have already announced that ration bread will only be for children. Hopefully, part of the flour destined for hotels and the government leadership, who lack for nothing, can be allocated to the sick and the elderly.
"After more than six decades of Marxist revolution, class differences, instead of having disappeared, have reached levels not seen during the 20th century. The repressive measures against farmers, published in the official press, will increase the scarcity of the most basic products due to the internal blockade that prohibits Cubans from engaging in private enterprise, and this especially includes Cuban farmers, which is the main reason for the shortages of wheat, milk, and the abundance of hunger in the land.
These are more examples of how communist central planning creates an internal blockade in Cuba.
Havana continues to call Washington’s economic sanctions on Cuba a "blockade." This is not true as the State Department (and U.S. - Cuba trade statistics over the past 24 years) demonstrate. A meme appeared on social media in Spanish that outlines this reality, and Cuban scholar and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner on July 15, 2021 gave a commentaryon the blockade not prohibiting a series of economic measures that are proscribed by the Cuban government. Below is a translation to English of the mentioned meme.
"The blockade does not prohibit fishermen in Cuba from fishing, the dictatorship does;
The blockade does not confiscate what farmers harvest, the dictatorship does;
The blockade does not prohibit Cubans on the island from doing business freely, the dictatorship does;
The blockade did not destroy every sugar mill, textile factory, shoe store, canning factory, the dictatorship did;
The blockade is not responsible for Cubans being paid with worthless pesos and stores sell you products with American dollars; the dictatorship is;
The blockade is not responsible that Cubans are beaten and imprisoned for thinking differently, the dictatorship is;
The blockade is not responsible that there are hundreds of Cuban political prisoners who have not committed any crime, the dictatorship is;
The blockade is not responsible for sending Cubans US dollars that they give to you in worthless pesos in the Western Union, the dictatorship is;
The blockade is not responsible for the dictatorship building hotels and the roofs that fall on Cubans' heads, the dictatorship is;
The blockade is not responsible for hospitals in Cuba that are disgusting, the dictatorship is;
The blockade is not responsible for not having water in homes, for not maintaining the aqueduct system, the dictatorship is;"
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