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Cuba is celebrating today the Day of the Farmer and the 67th anniversary of the First Agrarian Reform Law with official events across the country, while the reality of the countryside contradicts the official narrative, with empty markets or with unreachable prices for the majority, collapsing production, and bureaucratic hurdles suffocating the producers.
In the case of Granma, the provincial event took place this Saturday at the VIII Congreso credit and services cooperative in the municipality of Yara, and was presided over by Yudelkis Ortiz Barceló, the first secretary of the Communist Party in the province.
Leyanis Manso Martí, president of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) in the eastern province, reaffirmed the commitment to promote strategic crops such as rice, root vegetables, and greens, and incentives were awarded to the municipality of Yara and to outstanding cooperatives and producers, highlighted the official newspaper La Demajagua.
The gap between that discourse and reality is vast. Orlando Lorenzo Linares Morell, president of the Agricultural Business Group of Cuba, admitted days ago that rice production fell from 304,000 tons in 2018 to just 111,000 tons in 2025, which is 36% of the level from seven years ago, and recognized that this figure "is not significant on the Cuban table."
By the end of April, the planting campaign was only 70% completed, and agricultural aviation is completely halted. Due to the lack of fuel, the sector has reverted to oxen, buffalo, horses, windmills, and solar pumps.
"There is equipment, but there is not enough fuel," admitted Linares Morell.
The energy crisis directly worsens the food chain. The Minister of Energy and Mines Vicente de la O Levy acknowledged on Wednesday that Cuba "has absolutely no fuel, no diesel, only associated gas."
In Guantánamo, the lack of fuel for the pasteurization process forces raw milk to be distributed directly from the field to stores for children aged two to six.
"Directly, because it does not go through the pasteurization process due to the current energy crisis we are facing," explained Adriel Leiva Elías, director of the Dairy Products Company from the easternmost province of Cuba.
Structural hurdles are compounded by state bureaucracy. The private company Havana Agro SURL reported in April that the Institute of Agricultural Engineering of the Ministry of Agriculture creates repeated and intentional obstacles to prevent producers from accessing agricultural machinery, and announced that it will limit its operations on the island.
Although the government announced in April the formal end of the Acopio monopoly through Decree 143, the regulation maintains extensive mechanisms of state control. The system accumulated millions in debts with farmers: in Havana alone, it owed nearly 200 million pesos to producers.
Prices in agricultural markets are unaffordable for most people. A carton of eggs costs 3,800 Cuban pesos, imported rice ranges from 690 to 840 pesos per kilogram, and a basic minimum purchase amounts to over 56% of the average monthly salary of 6,930 pesos.
The Food Monitor Program estimates that 96.91% of the population does not have adequate access to food.
The economist Pedro Monreal has pointed out that the Cuban agricultural crisis is more severe than the Special Period of the 1990s.
The leader Miguel Díaz-Canel inadvertently summarized the extent of the collapse on May 3. "We will eat what we are able to produce," he noted.
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