Cuba, the great crisis of bread and milk

Daniel Lozano

Updated Friday, March 1, 2024-01:15

"Notice. Starting February 28, bread will only be for children from zero to 14 years old. The Administration."

To make it clear to Cubans,

only minors will eat bread from the state warehouse throughout March

thanks to the miraculous revolutionary ration book.

Also for pregnant women and health sectors, says Oviamna Martínez, the person in charge of administering subsidized food in Pinar del Río, the westernmost region of Cuba.

Something similar happens with milk, which is missing again.

And what is found, in powder, only comes close, according to the many complaints on the island.

"I barely remember what it is. There is no milk here, I have a little girl and nothing. There is something strange there, which they say is cereal, but it doesn't work. You put it in water to see what comes out and It is not even diluted. Now more than ever, bread is a divine gift, it arrives at the warehouse when it arrives. Three or four days go by without bread, which has caused the price on the street to rise. On the other hand, SMEs (small and medium-sized companies, the embryo of capitalism in Cuba) do not stop, they continue to import their flour," Santiago activist Darién Columbie describes for EL MUNDO.

Cubans are suffering another twist in their great systemic crisis, of such volume that the

Castro Government

has been forced to ask for help for the first time from the

World Food Program

(WFP), as certified by the Efe agency with the international organization.

To make a labyrinth that has no exit even more convoluted, the revolution launches today, a month late, the star measure of its economic package: the increase in the price of fuel, which in some of its sections represents an increase of 500%.

The Government justified itself a month ago with the excuse of a

hack

that it claims to have already overcome, fearing the social response in a country fed up with its sufferings and suffering from the largest diaspora in its history.

"How long will we continue to put up with our children waking up without milk, without bread, without a decent breakfast. How are they going to demand that a child go to school, that a worker arrive early to work if he spends the day thinking about what he is going to bring?" to eat at their table. The salary, furthermore, is not even enough for a 10-pound package of chicken (around five kilos)", complains Lienna Virgen Leyva, mother of two small children.

Similar laments multiply throughout the country, whether in the streets, in queues or on the networks, a social outlet that reflects the state of national depression.

The food crisis has become the number one priority for Cubans, as confirmed by the Cuba Siglo XXI ideas laboratory.

Thanks to a survey carried out in the 15 Cuban provinces through focus groups, they have confirmed that for 79% of those surveyed, food is the first priority, and for 20%, the second.

The rest of the most important emergencies are public health for 58%, and electricity, in the face of constant blackouts, for 56%.

92% also consider that economic freedom is essential to resolve this crisis.

Granma

, which not only serves as the bulletin of the

Cuban Communist Party (PCC) but also as

an

oracle of the impossible, assured that all contracted shipments of wheat flour were delayed.

None arrived on time.

The reality is different, as almost always in Cuba.

"The contraction of almost 30% of physical wheat imports in just one year generated a crisis in the availability of the most widely consumed type of bread in a context of households impoverished by inflation, fueling food insecurity," revealed the economist. Pedro Monreal.

Milk has also been in short supply for years due to the terrible state administration.

The one found in the private sector has risen in price, which has forced the government to request the WFP.

"The causes of the food crisis are the absence of measures to liberalize the economy, the low investment in agriculture and food and the bureaucratic obstacles. The regime continues to affirm that the strength of socialism is in the socialist state enterprise, a true madness whose bad results are suffered by ordinary Cubans. With data in hand we have denounced the growing poverty that today reaches 88% of households and the serious food situation," Yaxys Cires, director of strategies of the Cuban Observatory of Rights, confirms to EL MUNDO. Human Rights (OCDH).

For great evils, remedies that border on the grotesque.

The lack of flour has led different state bakeries to imitate such a basic product with so-called

extenders

, such as pumpkin puree, cassava flour or sweet potato dough.

There are luckier ones, with relatives abroad, who will receive daily bread from a clever local self-employed person thanks to the combos of up to 30 days, which include hamburger and hot dog bread.

Payments are made from abroad and with dollars.