CUBA: Dire Drought May Not Be a Passing Phenomenon

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Mar 14 2005 (IPS) - Rubén Torres, a Cuban farmer, anxiously listens to the weather report every day, hoping to hear good news. Rainfall continues to be scarce, and the few showers that have arrived have been insufficient and scattered.

Although a downpour in the last week of February lasted several hours in the western part of Cuba, the rain fell far short of replenishing the reservoirs, some of which are almost empty.

"Well, in February we just waited in vain," Torres said in a telephone interview with IPS. "We’ve had some of the normal March rains, but we need a lot of water to fall, because things here are really dry."

Torres’ farm, which he inherited from his grandfather, is located eight km outside of Santa Clara, the capital of the west-central province of Villa Clara.

The farmer said the drought is now extending from the eastern to the western portion of this Caribbean island nation.

"The hardest-hit part formerly stretched as far as the (east-central province of) Camagüey, but now the drought is also being felt in Sancti Espíritus and Villa Clara," farther and farther to the west, he said. "People are shocked, they had never before seen such a long-lasting drought."

Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Granma and Las Tunas, Cuba’s five eastern provinces, have felt the effects of the lack of rainfall with greater intensity and for far longer than the rest of the country, with economic losses in that region amounting to more than 800 million dollars in 2004, according to official estimates.

In Camagüey, 533 km from Havana, more and more cattle are dying, while water and food are increasingly scarce.

Press reports from the province indicated that more than 100 head of cattle died daily in January and February, with 70 percent of the death toll blamed directly on starvation and thirst.

In the east, rainfall levels between May 2003 and October 2004 amounted to just 60 percent of the normal average, with the deficit reaching 700 mm in the most heavily affected areas.

In early 2005, the alarm began to sound in the capital as well, where last year’s rains reached only 71 percent of the normal average.

Experts say that 2004 was the driest year in the capital in the last 40 years, along with 1993. More than 100,000 of Havana’s 2.2 million residents are now receiving water in cistern trucks, a number that could grow in the next few months.

In the eastern region of Cuba, the number of people who depend on water cistern trucks has risen to 700,000.

Of the country’s 235 reservoirs, 114 are less than 25 percent full, and 41 percent are below "dead volume", which means they cannot be used until they are replenished.

While farmers worriedly search the sky for the longed-for rain clouds, Cuba’s authorities are designing plans and adopting measures to overcome the crisis, and urging the population to ration and save every drop of water.

Scientists, meanwhile, warn that the drought is apparently not a fluke, and that the dry weather may last for quite a while.

Braulio Lapinel and Ramón Pérez at the Meteorology Institute’s climate centre told the government-owned daily newspaper Granma in January that although in Cuba there have always been years of abundant rainfall and years of drought, major changes have been seen since the 1970s, reflecting those experienced at a global level.

Lapinel said there will likely be repeats of the current long-lasting drought, especially taking into account the reduction in rainfall throughout the Caribbean that began to be felt in the 20th century, accompanied by a rise in both the average and minimum temperatures.

Rising temperatures and increased evaporation lead to diminished water resources as the climate becomes more arid and salt water seeps into the coastal aquifers due to the rising sea level.

"This is very scary," said Torres, who believes alternative solutions and more drought-resistant crops must be found. He noted that many farmers have begun to plant sorghum, which needs little water, for animal fodder.

"My grandfather used to say ‘plant corn in April and go back to bed’, because the May rains would take care of making it grow. I don’t think we can say that anymore. We have to adapt to the climate changes," he added.