Children in Havana have gone over two months without receiving meat or ground beef as part of the regulated basic food basket, according to a high-ranking official from the Cuban regime during an official television program aired on May 24th.
Dayana Matech Vilá, the first vice president of the Business Group of the Agro-Food Industry, acknowledged on the program "Cuadrando la Caja" that the cause is the lack of fuel to transport livestock from the producing provinces to the capital.
"The children in the capital are facing the difficulty of not receiving ground meat for children for over two months," declared Matech Vilá in front of the state television cameras.
According to the official, the meat intended for the children in Havana comes from Villa Clara and Sancti Spíritus, but without fuel, it is impossible to transport, process, or distribute it: "They have not been able to acquire what is needed in those territories to fulfill their own requirements, nor to transport it to Havana, process it, and deliver it to the children."
The problem is not limited to meat. The same official admitted that more than 100,000 children across Cuba are not receiving their daily milk as required by regulations: "We have no way to go to the fields to collect that milk... if we had the fuel situation we had during the last stable period, there would not be more than 100,000 affected children."
In Havana, the situation is particularly severe due to the dependency on imported powdered milk for child nutrition. As explained by Matech Vilá, difficulties in importing this product have worsened supply issues. "Sometimes we have the financing to acquire the milk, but it doesn't reach us here or, simply, when it comes time to carry out the operation, we're told, 'No, we can't operate with you,'" the official remarked. According to her, the situation escalated in May due to external restrictions.
As a partial alternative, some companies have acquired electric tricycles with solar panels for milk distribution, aiming to conserve the limited available fuel for collection in rural areas. The industry has also diversified its production: a dairy plant can produce meat derivatives and vice versa, to ensure some type of food for the population.
The official's confessions come in the context of a widespread collapse of the ration book, where in many stores only rice and sugar can be purchased.
Five provinces —La Habana, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Guantánamo, and Santiago de Cuba— were identified as being at critical levels of food insecurity in April 2026, according to a report that also revealed a drop of 81% in rice production and 61% in egg production.
The electricity deficit reached 1,885 MW in March 2026, with blackouts lasting up to 25 hours a day, which paralyzes the entire food logistics chain: without electricity, there is no refrigeration; without fuel, there is no transportation; and without transportation, food does not reach those who need it most.
In February, in Villa Clara, daily bread could only be guaranteed for children under 13 and seniors over 65 due to the energy crisis. In Santiago de Cuba, a ground meat mixture was distributed consisting of 70% meat and 30% textured soy due to a shortage of raw materials, a practice that has already generated complaints since 2025.
The regime's economic program for 2026 proclaims that "increasing national production with an emphasis on food is the central piece for stabilizing the country," but the reality described by its own officials points in the opposite direction: more than two months without meat for children in the capital of a country that imports between 70% and 80% of the food it consumes.
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