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The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the European Union announced new advancements in renewable energy projects for food production in Cuba, but the reality of Cuban agriculture and the food crisis affecting the population starkly contrasts with the achievements reported by the regime's official media.
According to Prensa Latina, the Alass project —Local Self-Sufficiency for Sustainable and Healthy Food— has irrigated 123 hectares with solar energy across six municipalities in the central part of the country, including Placetas and Remedios in Villa Clara, as well as areas in Sancti Spíritus.
The project, financed with 13.43 million euros—over 70% of the budget for the Strategic Support Program for Sustainable Food Security in Cuba agreed upon with the EU—benefits 72 producers with 89 windmills, 43 solar pumps, and 74 photovoltaic irrigation systems, with an installed capacity of 500 kWp.
The goal is to reach 323 hectares under irrigation, which would represent only 13.6% of the two thousand hectares that the Cuban government itself set as a target for 2026.
Yasser Díaz, an expert in Policy at the Agricultural Engineering Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, acknowledged that the irrigated cultivable area in Cuba "does not exceed 10%" of the total.
"In this scenario of resource limitations, irrigation from renewable sources offers fundamental advantages: achieving energy sovereignty, increasing yields by at least 30%, and ensuring supply for livestock. The contribution of cooperation is crucial," emphasized the official.
International cooperation also includes other initiatives: the local FRE project has installed 550 renewable energy systems for isolated communities, and Japan donated 6.5 million dollars to install solar panels in 10 Cuban hospitals —four in Havana and six in the provinces— aiming to ensure electricity in operating rooms, emergency departments, and intensive care units.
However, none of these investments have succeeded in reversing the food collapse that the Cuban population is experiencing, a direct result of 67 years of communist dictatorship and an agricultural model that has devastated the country's productive capacity.
A survey on hunger in Cuba published on May 6 by the Food Monitor Program and Cuido60 revealed that 33.9% of Cuban households reported that at least one person went to bed without eating in the past year, and 94.9% of participants experienced some degree of reduced access to food purchases.
The hardest-hit provinces are Granma, with 78.9% of households affected; Guantánamo, with 78.7%; and Matanzas, with 67.3%.
Agricultural production continues to plummet: rice production dropped from 304,000 tons in 2018 to just 111,000 in 2025, and the World Food Programme documented that between 2018 and 2023, pork production fell by 95%, beans by 70%, and milk by 58%.
In this context, Cuban agriculture turned to oxen and animal traction in May due to the lack of fuel to harvest already planted crops, an image that starkly illustrates the gap between the announced cooperation projects and the reality of the Cuban countryside.
The Alass project aims to benefit nearly 600,000 people in the territories where it operates, but Cuba imports about 70% of the food it consumes, with an annual expenditure of around 2 billion dollars. This dependency cannot be resolved by any windmill or solar panel as long as the regime maintains the structures that hinder productive and free agriculture.
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