Miguel Díaz-Canel declared that food production in Cuba is "a matter of national security" and ordered an end to idle lands, before announcing the expansion of agricultural usufruct for private producers, cooperatives, small and medium-sized enterprises, and associative forms during the Extraordinary Plenary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
"Every piece of land covered in marabou, when it should be producing food, must have a clear answer: either it starts producing or it is handed over to someone willing to do so," he expressed.
The ruler clarified that state ownership of the land is not up for discussion: "That land will remain with the people, and if it does not produce, if it does not serve the country, if it does not fulfill its social function, it will have to pass into the hands of those who can indeed make it productive."
The announcement also includes a specific promise for farmers: direct access to foreign currency through sales to the tourism sector or the exchange market, and the possibility of directly importing seeds, fertilizers, parts, and equipment.
"The Cuban farmer can no longer be asked to produce more food with fewer tools and prices below their costs," he stated.
The speech was part of a package of 176 measures organized into 23 strategic axes that the National Assembly ratified on Thursday during an extraordinary session, arising from the evaluation of 390 proposals. The process was expedited: Díaz-Canel announced the main lines on June 12, the PCC approved them on Wednesday, and the Assembly confirmed them the following day.
Díaz-Canel had no choice but to acknowledge that the crisis also has an internal origin: «There are obstacles that do not come from outside or from blockades. There is slowness, bureaucracy, norms that hinder those who want to produce, and decisions that we have postponed. What depends on us, we need to change ourselves, and we must change it now».
The scale of the agricultural collapse surrounding these announcements is alarming. Between 2018 and 2023, pork production fell by 95%, rice by 87%, beans by 70%, and milk by 58%.
The marabou -an invasive plant symbolizing the neglect of Cuban fields- covers between 1.1 and 1.7 million hectares of previously productive land. In 2021, the state itself acknowledged that 49% of the 6.4 million hectares of agricultural land in the country was uncultivated, while Cuba imports between 70% and 80% of the food it consumes.
In April, 96.91% of the Cuban population did not have adequate access to food, according to the Food Monitor Program, and 33.9% of households reported that a member went to bed hungry in the last 30 days.
The announcement about usufruct is not the first. Since 2008, when the regime promoted Decree-Law 259, more than 2.1 million hectares have been granted in usufruct with disappointing results: in 2015, contracts were canceled for 43,000 usufructuaries for failing to properly utilize the land.
The economist Pedro Monreal described the set of reforms as "delayed pragmatism" and warned that Cuba "has missed the train of the reforms in China and Vietnam".
The regime is now preparing a new Agricultural and Forestry Land Law that would extend the usufruct period to 25 renewable years, broaden the land limits to 268 hectares, and include private micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises as beneficiaries, according to details of the future agrarian legislation.
Raúl Castro, who participated via videoconference in the Extraordinary Plenary and signed the proposal document, issued a warning that encapsulates the accumulated skepticism: "As important as the approval of these transformations is their proper and timely implementation."
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