A video posted on Facebook by user Elier Ramos shows a group of Cubans pouring oil directly into the engine of a tractor to make it run, due to the impossibility of obtaining diesel on the island. The images, which have gone viral this week, starkly illustrate the level of desperation facing Cuban agriculture.
In the recording, the narrator encourages his companions while one of them — whom they call "el Fena" — pours oil into the engine: "Come on, guys, there's Fena pouring the oil. Pour it. Let them see there's no needle. We're going for the third box." At the end of the clip, the phrase summarizes everything: "We're going to use up fuel, we're going to use up fuel", referring to replacing the conventional diesel that simply doesn't exist.
The case is not isolated. Other Cubans have shared similar experiences: the farmer Juan José Martínez Serrat adapted his tractor to run on used cooking oil, and a family identified as @el_paisus shared an identical process. Previously, a Cuban made his car run on charcoal through gasification, a case that was covered by Reuters.
From a technical standpoint, pure vegetable oil poses serious risks to modern diesel engines: higher viscosity, carbon deposit accumulation, and damage to injectors. However, older and more robust engines—particularly those that prevail in the aging fleet of agricultural machinery in Cuba—tolerate these types of emergency adaptations better.
The root of the problem is the most severe fuel crisis Cuba has experienced in decades. A liter of diesel on the black market is priced between 1,500 and 3,000 Cuban pesos, which is unaffordable for most producers. According to data from the first quarter of 2026, 96.4% of the 9,236 registered agricultural microenterprises on the island face severe restrictions due to a lack of fuel. Cuban farmers are exchanging food for diesel to continue operations, according to the Food Monitor Program.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned in March 2026 that the lack of diesel is preventing the harvesting of already planted crops in Cuba, which constitutes a humanitarian emergency.
The energy collapse has direct structural causes. Cuba went from receiving 105,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan oil in 2012 to less than 30,000 in 2025. The end of Venezuelan oil strikes hard at the entire Cuban economy, and the situation worsened after the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026. Additionally, an executive order from President Donald Trump, signed on January 29, 2026, threatens tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba.
The desperation to find alternatives has also led to a wave of thefts of dielectric oil from electrical transformers to resell it as fuel, leaving entire municipalities without electricity for weeks in provinces such as Las Tunas, Granma, Holguín, and Matanzas.
While the Cuban countryside improvises with oil in tractors, Díaz-Canel has evoked "the effort and talent of Cubans" and agroecological techniques as a response to the impossibility of using diesel machinery, a response that contrasts with the magnitude of the food crisis affecting the population.
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