HEALTH-CUBA: Pigs Out of Havana, Orders Castro

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Mar 12 2002 (IPS) - A ban on keeping pigs in residential areas of the Cuban capital will be the new aim of a hygiene campaign that has been under way since January, President Fidel Castro announced Tuesday.

The measure, adopted to confront what the authorities describe as a critical health situation in Havana, will affect numerous families who raise pigs on their patios, or even in bathtubs, for their own consumption or to sell.

“Raising pigs in the city, which occasionally occurs even in multi-family dwellings, clashes with the most basic concepts of hygiene,” stated Castro in an article published by ‘Granma’ newspaper, mouthpiece of the Communist Party of Cuba.

“The main concern is the capital of the republic, where 2.2 million people live, and some of its areas are densely populated,” he said.

The authorities launched an offensive in January to wipe out mosquito-breeding sites in Havana in an effort to stop the spread of the dengue virus by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

More than two million cubic metres of waste were collected in the city in less than two months. In addition to eliminating mosquito larvae, health officials and volunteers distributed rat poison.

Confronted with appeared to be an incipient health emergency, the authorities expanded the hygiene plans to encompass pig- raising sites, which can be the source of transmission of numerous diseases.

The initiative places priority on Havana’s densely populated central districts, where “the need to eradicate” pig keeping in residential areas will be discussed with the inhabitants, Castro said.

In the city’s peripheral areas, people may raise pigs as long as the necessary hygiene and safety measures are in place. The process “will occur without haste or drastic measures, but through persuasive and reasonable – though firm – methods,” said the president.

Keeping pigs and poultry within Havana’s city limits proliferated along with the economic crisis that has affected Cuba since the Caribbean island lost its main trade partners – the Soviet Union and European socialist bloc – in the early 1990s.

Food shortages were at their worst between 1991 and 1993. It was in that period that Havana families were forced to pay outrageous prices for any sort of food they could find on the black market.

After it became impossible to ensure supplies of red meat, poultry or fish for the population after having provided it through rationing programmes for years, the government began to sell live young chickens at the state-run butcher shops for families to raise at home.

Many city dwellers also made trips to the countryside to buy one or two young pigs, taking them home to raise in a small pens on a patio or balcony, or in the bathtub.

With the 1993 opening of produce markets – in which individual farmers and farming cooperatives sell their products in an environment where the laws of supply and demand reign – the availability of beef and pork led to a reduction in livestock in the city, though the practice did not disappear entirely.

One of the main challenges to limiting urban pig raising is the population’s preference for pork and pork fat, according to a report by the governmental Institute of Nutrition and Food Hygiene.

In the 1990s, the daily average nutritional consumption on the island dropped to 1,863 calories and 46 grams of protein per person, or 74 percent and 61 percent, respectively, of the minimum considered necessary to maintain health.

Per person consumption now stands at 2,400 calories and 65 grams of protein daily, but the rates are still below the recommended 2,500 calories and 75 grams of protein, according to economists consulted by IPS.

“I fatten one pig each year because I don’t have space for more. I can’t ensure food for my family like this, but it does give us a good party at the end of the year. I could never afford to buy an entire pig for the December 31 celebration,” said Augusto Jiménez, resident of the beach town of Guanabo, 20 km from downtown Havana.

One kilo of pork currently fetches 54 pesos, or the equivalent of two dollars, according to the rates at the government-run currency exchange houses. The average Cuban income is around 240 pesos a month.

Jiménez has been keeping pigs in his back patio since 1990. “My wife complains about the stench all the time, but she loves to eat a little pork on the 31st,” he laughs.

The traditional New Year’s Eve meal in Cuba consists of black beans, pork, fried plantains and manioc, with a special garlic seasoning. The dream of many Cubans is to roast an entire pig on an outdoor grill at year end.

The ban on raising pigs will be limited to the island’s capital, according to Castro, while in other cities throughout the country, the practice will be regulated to ensure sanitation only and will have only minimal effect on this important source of meat.