The coffee plantations in the municipality of Maisí, in Guantánamo, were severely affected by the passage of Hurricane Oscar.
The province, which alongside Santiago de Cuba, ranks second in coffee production in Cuba, was battered by the winds and rains of the weather event.
The Maisí territory, for its part, is the largest producer of the grain in Guantánamo, where this crop stands out as the main economic pillar of agriculture.
"The impact was very strong, due to the intense winds. Today we find ourselves in the midst of the coffee harvest. Up until the moment of the impact, we had collected 56,000 cans of coffee. We had over 35,000 cans of ripe coffee that we were unable to collect, which we, of course, lost. We are assessing the damage to approximately 75,000 cans of coffee that have been lost," explained Pablo Vega, vice president of the provincial Defense Council, to Cuban Television.
Additionally, the leader acknowledged that “more than 500 hectares of plantain within the coffee crops have been affected,” and reported that “a recovery program” has been initiated with the aim of salvaging the largest possible volume of the impacted crops.
At 4:30 PM on Sunday, October 20, the weather station in Punta Maisí recorded a wind gust of 103 km/h, a clear indicator of the hurricane's imminent arrival in the eastern region of Cuba.
The following day, the Cuban government announced that there were, on a preliminary basis, over a thousand homes damaged in several municipalities of the Guantánamo province.
Houses without roofs, collapsed zinc roofs, partial collapses of homes, especially those made of wood, plantations on the ground, damaged electric poles, and remnants of flooding all testify to the strength of the winds and the intensity of the rains brought by Oscar to the easternmost region of Cuba.
Maisí was one of the municipalities most affected by the hurricane's arrival. Roeldis Román Tomasén, president of the Defense Council for that area, noted that 8,904 people were evacuated, with the majority, precisely 8,679, having self-evacuated to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors.
The municipality recorded gusts of 101 km/h, and the greatest damage was observed in the housing sector, where it was noted that the losses are "substantial." Meanwhile, the most affected economic entities were coffee production and banana crops.
This situation further complicates the landscape of the rationed distribution of coffee in the basic family basket. Since August, Cubans have not been receiving their coffee quota through the supply booklet, a circumstance that has been chronic, with its ups and downs, for years and has become especially acute in the past year.
In mid-July, the Minister of Domestic Trade, Betsy Díaz Velázquez, presented the "accountability" report of her ministry to the National Assembly of People's Power.
"2023 ended with impacts on beans, sugar, oil, coffee, chicken, meat products, eggs, and domestic fuels, which continued into the first quarter of 2024," Díaz Velázquez stated calmly, aware that "accountability" is a farce of the Cuban regime and that incompetence has no repercussions for its ministers.
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