The Agropecuaria Artemisa Company has accumulated a debt of tens of millions of pesos with producers in the province, with delays of up to ten months in payments, according to a report from the state-run outlet Cubadebate published this Wednesday.
Only the Tomás Álvarez Breto Credit and Services Cooperative (CCS) has a debt exceeding 12 million pesos with the state-owned company, and the amount increases every month that goes by without being settled.
«We are also owed for the air conditioning. Of course, the largest debt is that of the Agropecuaria Company: over 12 million. Each month that closes adds to that debt, making it increasingly difficult to pay off,» declared Fernando García Cazañas, president of the CCS Álvarez Breto.
Among those affected is Daniel Evelio González, who has been cultivating bananas in the area for almost four decades. He acknowledged that he has had to suspend deliveries to Acopio because without payment he cannot sustain the farm or pay his five workers, who demand daily cash.
"They owe me about half a million pesos. I'll be honest with you: we've had to stop accumulating because, since they haven't paid us, there’s no way to cover the expenses of the farm," he said.
Another producer from the same cooperative, William Hernández Valdés, with more than 19 hectares planted with burro bananas, reports a debt of over one million pesos. The last payment he received was for October 2024; since November of that year, he has not seen a single peso.
"Everyone wants cash in hand, immediately; they don't want transfers, just cash. The last payment they received was in October, after a long wait," he stated to the cited media outlet.
The problem has a chain effect: farmers are unable to withdraw the money accumulated on their bank cards — withdrawal limits hover around 2,000 or 5,000 pesos — while their laborers demand payment in cash. Faced with this trap, many have chosen to sell their crops in Pinar del Río, Guanajay, or directly to organizations such as Commerce and Public Health, which exacerbates the shortages in Artemisa and Havana.
To try to resolve the situation, the Agricultural Company requested a loan of 48 million pesos. However, the bank determined that these funds can only be allocated to pay for future productions, not the accumulated debt.
García Cazañas described the decision as absurd: "How is it that if you owe me 30,000 pesos and you receive three million, you won't pay me my 30,000 pesos, but only whatever you owe from now on? This encourages the producer not to deliver anything."
This is not a new issue nor one exclusive to Artemisa. In July 2024, the Cuban government acknowledged a debt of nearly 200 million pesos to farmers across the country, with Artemisa being the hardest-hit province, facing over 167 million pesos in debt. The Banco Popular de Ahorro intervened with multi-million peso loans, but the problem resurfaced.
In April 2025, the dairy company Río Zaza from Sancti Spíritus accumulated over 150 million pesos in debt to private producers, halting milk production and impacting the supply for children, pregnant women, and patients on special diets.
Despite the fact that at the beginning of 2026 the government announced the formal end of the Acopio monopoly in agricultural marketing, state controls over prices and destinations remain in place, and unpaid debts continue unresolved.
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