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The Cuban economist Pedro Monreal lamented that the Government deliberately misinforms the public about the seriousness of the agricultural crisis through systematic delays in the publication of statistics and the replacement of verifiable data with propaganda.
In a post on his Facebook account, Monreal insisted that the current agricultural crisis is “deeper and more prolonged” than that of the Special Period, but that the State is concealing it by combining a simplified narrative with a reinforced statistical blackout.
According to the explanation, by the end of 2025, the latest official agricultural statistics will correspond to 2023.
The economist specified that the agricultural chapter of the 2023 Statistical Yearbook was published on January 21, 2025, and that, hopefully, the 2024 data would be available in January 2026.
She considered this delay "strange," especially since it is a chapter with only 31 data indicators, which are easier to compile than other chapters that are published more quickly.
Monreal emphasized that the issue is not limited to delays but also includes the obsolescence of information.
He cited the data on land use as an example, noting that the most recent records date back to 2017, despite their importance for assessing the sector's performance.
The economist described the disappearance of three key reports as the "apotheosis of the statistical blackout": the annual report "Panorama. Land Use" and the quarterly reports "Agricultural Sector. Selected Indicators" and "Sales of Agricultural Products."
In their view, this discontinuation facilitates an official narrative that prioritizes propaganda and anecdotal information.
According to Monreal, government presentations have replaced information on concrete results—quantities and values of food produced and marketed—with data on prepared or planted land, which do not reflect the actual availability of food.
He added that even those figures are usually presented only as annual variations, without providing medium-term series that would allow for an understanding of the depth of the crisis.
The economist concluded that official presentations, such as those made during the mini parliamentary session on December 18, rely on scarce and largely irrelevant data, woven into a narrative that replaces empirical evidence with a "propaganda pamphlet."
Cuba maintains a paralysis of its agricultural productions driven, among other factors, by the obsolescence of machinery, the scarcity of basic supplies such as fertilizers and seeds, the fuel crisis, and climatic and soil conditions.
On the other hand, most of the land remains under state control, cooperatives do not have the freedom to decide what to produce, and the collection system monopolizes buying and selling, in addition to preventing farmers from planting and trading autonomously.
These structural deficiencies hinder the revitalization of the agricultural sector and force the country to rely on expensive food imports, including the purchase of eggs from the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia.
An example of this is the loss of a state-run mango plantation in the center of the country, overgrown with weeds, due to governmental neglect and apathy, while the Cuban population endures long lines to obtain basic food.
The Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa recently acknowledged that the expansion of rice cultivation depends on private producers financing machinery and supplies, amidst a crisis that has the country producing only a fraction of the rice it consumes.
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