ENVIRONMENT/AGRICULTURE-CUBA: Drought Makes Locals Pray for Cyclone

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

CAMAGUEY, Cuba, May 21 2001 (IPS) - Life in the eastern part of Cuba has become so difficult due to a drought that has dragged on for more than four years that locals have begun to pray for a tropical storm, which experts say would be the only possible solution.

“Just a little cyclone, please,” pleads Migdalia Romero, a small farmer, as she crosses her fingers for good luck. “And whatever comes, may it bring plenty of water, but little wind,” she adds.

Tropical storms, widely feared in Cuba because of the damages to people’s homes and the economy in general, now hold out the only hope for people on the eastern portion of the island, where reservoirs are drying up and water has to be trucked in for the cattle.

The provinces hit hardest by the drought are Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Holguin and Las Tunas, at the eastern tip of the island, a region that is home to around three million of Cuba’s 11 million people.

Scarcity of rainfall is also affecting parts of central and western Cuba as well.

“This area has always been very dry, but never like it is now. It is sad to drive along the highways and see the state of the livestock and pastures,” says Ileana Vega, who lives in Camagüey, some 500 kms from Havana.

The province of Camagüey, Cuba’s main stock-breeding region, has seen its herds shrink in recent years, initially due to a lack of fodder caused by the economic crisis of the 1990s, and later to the effects of the drought.

“These days, the farmers aren’t even making enough cheese,” comments Vega, who in the past two years has made regular trips to the capital to resell Camagüey’s famous white cheese to a select group of clients.

Ministry of Agriculture sources in that province reported that nearly 130,000 animals were supplied by water wagons in April. More than 1,430 sources of water, mainly wells and mini-dams, had dried up in the area’s pasturelands.

Nationwide, the number of livestock whose water is trucked in has risen to roughly 300,000, which has driven up the costs of stockbreeding, due to the extra expenses for petrol. In addition, the animals – and in consequence, production – suffer as water deliveries do not always arrive regularly.

The situation is even more serious in Guantanamo, 970 kms from Havana, where the drought killed 1,200 animals last August, and forced farmers to slaughter 635 and transfer another 9,000 to other regions.

“The earth is just dust. When it rains, the water disappears into the ground immediately, and crops like corn are scorched by the sun without producing a thing,” lamented Guantanamo farmer José González Prado on a visit to Havana last week.

Experts say the rain that has fallen in the past few months was insufficient to moisten the soil or resupply underground and surface sources of water.

Nor will the typical May showers have much of an effect. Even though heavy rains were reported in some areas last week, and rainfall this month is expected to be normal, the National Institute of Meteorology warns that even normal rains will hardly make a dent.

José Rubiera, the director of the institute’s weather forecast department, said the drought plaguing eastern Cuba had a “cumulative” effect, and that the only solution would be a tropical storm bringing enormous amounts of water.

He added that “normal” rainfall in the wet season that began this month would hardly bring any relief to farmers and ranchers.

The National Institute of Hydraulic Resources, in charge of Cuba’s dams, estimated in late April that the water in the country’s reservoirs stood at just 40 percent of capacity on average.

The institute said the situation nationwide was “complex,” and especially dramatic in the east, where some reservoirs held only 20 to 30 percent of capacity.

“Extreme emergency” conditions have been declared in Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city, with a population of more than 500,000 people, because the five reservoirs that supply it with water stand below 20 percent of capacity.

Last year’s rainfall amounted to 84 percent of the historic average.

The cumulative effects of the drought have hurt essential crops like sugar, whose yield could fall to around three million tonnes this year.

To ease the impact, the government of Fidel Castro implemented special measures in the most-affected regions, and asked for help from the World Food Programme (WFP). In response, the UN agency agreed on a 22 million dollar food aid programme for Cuba’s eastern provinces last February.

The main beneficiaries will be pregnant and nursing women, and toddlers and infants aged two and under.

WFP representative in Havana, Germán Valdivia, said the plan would also include food supplements – nationally produced enriched cereals, canned meat and cooking oil – for schoolchildren and the elderly.

In 1998, the WFP approved food aid for Cuba, after a study by several UN agencies concluded that the island was facing the possibility of a severe food crisis, due to the drought.

WFP sources reported that drought affected around 100 million people in some 20 countries last year. The parts of the world that were hit the hardest were the sub-Saharan region of Africa, stretching from Mauritania to Sudan, the Horn of Africa, much of southern Africa, some portions of central Asia, Central America and the Caribbean.