Outdoors Havana, a mix belonging to a personal Vietnamese firm is harvesting rice, instantly farming Cuban land — in a primary — to assist handle acute meals shortages within the nation.
The Cuban authorities has granted Agri VAM, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s Fujinuco Group, 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres) of arable land in Los Palacios, 118 kilometers (73 miles) west of the capital.
Vietnam has suggested Cuba on rice cultivation previously however that is the primary time a personal agency has performed the farming itself.
The federal government permitted the transfer after a 52 p.c plunge in general agricultural manufacturing between 2018 and 2023, in keeping with information from the Middle for the Research of the Cuban Economic system on the College of Havana.
The rice numbers are even worse. Whole rice manufacturing dropped from 300,000 tons in 2018 to 55,000 tons in 2021, within the depths of the COVID pandemic. The quantity is slowly recovering, authorities say.
Rice is a staple of the native weight-reduction plan, with Cubans consuming 60 kilos (132 kilos) of rice per particular person per yr.
– Promising yields and daunting obstacles –
Throughout a media go to to its rice fields in Could, an Agri VAM consultant mentioned the harvest yield to this point is seven tons per hectare, “however we would like extra.”
That quantity dwarfs the ton and a half yield-per-hectare of Cuban growers.
Vietnam skilled the form of meals shortages that Cuba goes by means of now, within the Nineteen Eighties. Right this moment, the Southeast Asian nation is the world’s third exporter of rice and a valued marketing consultant to different rice-growing nations.
“The local weather and the temperature are superb for agriculture,” however Cuban growers lack needed farming merchandise equivalent to fertilizers, the Agri VAM consultant advised reporters.
Although Agri VAM can import some supplies, it faces different obstacles equivalent to gas shortages, transportation issues and frozen belongings, Cuban economist Omar Everleny Perez and different sources with data of the state of affairs advised AFP.
Agri VAM and different international companies in Cuba could also be making earnings however “they can not switch them overseas as a result of the banks haven’t any liquidity, no international foreign money,” Perez mentioned.
An unbiased Cuban media outlet, 14ymedio, lately printed excerpts of a letter dated in Could, wherein Agri VAM requested the Cuban authorities to unfreeze $300,000 in its account at state-owned Worldwide Financing Financial institution.
Vietnam’s state press in Could quoted deputy agriculture minister Nguyen Quoc Tri asking the federal government in Havana “to get rid of funding obstacles that Vietnamese corporations encounter.”
AFP contacted Agri VAM and Cuban officers however received no response.
– Overseas funding: badly wanted –
Cuba is mired in an acute financial disaster and desperately in want of international funding. Vietnam and different allies have proven curiosity.
In July, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz introduced that Havana was taking measures “to energise international funding” as he licensed “wholly foreign-owned corporations” within the lodge sector.
After three years of guarantees, Russia’s deputy prime minister Dmitry Chernyshenko introduced in Could that Russian companies need to make investments $1 billion in Cuba. Moscow will give them preferential financing charges, he mentioned.
However he cautioned that there’s “nonetheless onerous work to be performed” and mentioned it’s “not possible to realize issues instantly, as if by magic.”
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