FOOD-CUBA: Shortages Loom in Wake of Hurricane Michelle

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Dec 6 2001 (IPS) - Cuba could find itself facing a “situation of food insecurity” in the next five months, according to a preliminary report by a United Nations mission that toured the country after Hurricane Michelle caused unprecedented material damages.

The losses suffered by agriculture have already begun to generate food shortages, especially in the hardest-hit provinces, said the authors of the report, which has been neither published nor cited by Cuba’s state-controlled media.

The report emerged from the first visit to areas severely punished by the hurricane by the staff of six UN agencies represented in Cuba, two days after Michelle swept through on Nov 4.

The mission included officials with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The experts studied the short and long-term impact of the storm, and drew up a list of needs “to facilitate the task of organisations or countries interested in helping Cuba” overcome the damages.

Cuba is in need of items like food, clothing, household articles, and inputs for agriculture, construction, communications, the power industry and education.

By Nov 9, various donor countries and organisations, including Belgium, Denmark, Britain and Norway, had provided 1.6 million dollars in aid, with UNDP participation.

In addition, FAO has pledged 400,000 dollars to get agriculture back on its feet, the WFP will donate 200,000 dollars in food, and the United Nation’s children’s fund, UNICEF, will contribute another 200,000 dollars.

The UN mission’s report was the first assessment of the damages since a Nov 8 televised report on the situation by Vice-President Carlos Lage.

Michelle, which hit eight Cuban provinces that are home to 53 percent of the population of 11.2 million, was the “worst natural disaster” – in material terms – to hit the country in 50 years, according to Lage, who said the public would receive a complete report as soon as the losses were fully assessed.

However, a month later, no official report has been forthcoming.

The media have focused instead on the ongoing recovery efforts, including the stepped-up manufacturing of construction materials aimed at rebuilding the homes of thousands of families who were left without a roof over their heads.

The effects of the catastrophe take on heightened significance when considering the difficult economic situation of the country, which is emerging from a decade in the first half of which Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell 38 percent, said the UN experts.

Furthermore, the hurricane hit at a particularly tough moment, when the impact of the current global economic slowdown had led the government to reduce its growth forecasts for this year, they noted.

Michelle came “at the worst of times,” finding Cuba in a “very vulnerable” position, the resident coordinator of the UN system in Cuba, Luis Gómez Echeverri, told IPS.

In Havana, the crisis has begun to be felt in the form of scarcity of foodstuffs. Eggs, for example, have become hard to find in the chain of stores that accept only dollars, and even on the black market, where they are selling for a high 10 cents of a dollar apiece.

The government maintains two parallel legal markets, one that does business in Cuban pesos and the other in dollars. Although the peso is on par with the dollar at the official exchange rate, it stands at 27 to the dollar in the government exchange bureaux.

State-run stores are currently allowed to sell six eggs per person every 15 days, at a subsidised price of 15 cents of a peso per unit. But sources close to the Ministry of Interior Commerce warn that availability might soon be reduced.

The mission reported that 356,000 fowls, mainly egg-laying chickens, were killed by the storm. In addition, 17,860 hectares of banana plantations – 45 percent of the total – were lost, and it will take at least a year to return to pre-disaster production levels.

The storm also took a heavy toll on vegetable crops, rice, coffee, citrus fruits, and other fruit in high demand such as papaya, with total losses estimated at 8,500 tonnes.

Furthermore, the 2001-2002 sugar harvest may be 10 percent down, due to the damages suffered by the crop in areas where around 35 percent of Cuba’s sugar is produced.

Sugar is Cuba’s main guarantee for obtaining credit to finance its exports. It is also one of the country’s chief foreign exchange-earners, along with tourism and family remittances from Cubans living overseas.

The state will promote fast-growing crops in order to obtain harvests as soon as possible, but “a large part of those products will not be harvested before March or April 2002,” the UN experts warned.

The loss of harvests, the damages suffered by irrigation systems, and the need for additional seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides will bring a period of scarcity and drive up the already high prices of farm products throughout the country, the UN mission predicted.