In the middle of the sugar industry crisis, the government holds a manual cane cutting competition in Granma

An unusual competition of manual cane cutters took place last Saturday, March 30 in the province of Granma, in the middle of one of the worst moments of thesugar industry in the country.

According to the official newspaperThe Demajagua, in the competition held at the Enidio Díaz Machado sugar agro-industrial company, in Campechuela, three aspects were measured: cleanliness of the cut and shortness (at ground level), absence of foreign matter, neatness and uniformity of the cut.

There were 41 participants in that event, promoted by the Union of Young Communists (UJC), the Cuban Workers' Central and the Campechuel sugar company.

Although the prizes for the winners are not detailed, different participating duos were recognized in each category.

The competition takes place in the middle of a scenario in whichOnly 11 plants of the 22 that should have been grinding produce sugar in the current harvest which began on December 6, 2023.

AlthoughDionnis Pérez Pérez, director of IT and Communications of the Azcuba Business Group, did not recognize the lack of cane among the causes that have motivated this delay; the deplorable working conditions faced by the sugarcane growers also contribute to the technical deficiencies in the mills.

The previous harvest (2022-2023) is considered the worst in Cuba in the last 125 years. With its 350,000 tons of sugar, it became the worst harvest since 1898, when, in the middle of the War of Independence, Cuba's mills produced 300,000 tons.

The data, confirmed in the official programRound table, demonstrates the brutal decline of a sector that once placed Cuba among the main sugar exporters in the world. Of the 455,198 tons that the Cuban regime intended to produce in this harvest, only 77% of what was planned was achieved.