Cuba giving land to private farmers

While distributing farmland to individuals has been tried before in Cuba, this time the government seems willing to give up more control to get better results.

For example, it has authorized state stores to sell supplies directly to farmers — a key concession, since for decades, individuals had trouble legally obtaining so much as a shovel. The state also is providing free fertilizer and feed.

And this time, local farming associations are being empowered to oversee the land reallocation, a prerogative once reserved for the Agricultural Ministry in Havana, although Lugo added that the municipal delegations still must report to a new "central control center" lest land distribution "degenerate into chaos."

Disappearing veggies
Cuba spends $1.6 billion annually on food imports, about a third of it from the United States, which exempts food and farm exports from its embargo of the island.

Cuba even imports 82 percent of the $1 billion in rice, powdered milk and other staples it then rations to the public at subsidized prices — an astoundingly high figure for such a fertile country.

At farmers' markets, basics like cabbage and oranges are almost always available, but tomatoes and lettuce disappear during the rainy summer, and imported apples are considered a rare delicacy.

State-controlled cooperatives operate like modern mega-farms on huge swaths of land, often using heavy equipment and sophisticated irrigation systems. The cooperatives control all kinds of crops, including signature products like sugar, though the high-quality tobacco that goes into Cuba's famous cigars is already mostly in private hands.

Many large cooperatives are losing money and failing to meet production quotas. Their workers have little incentive to improve things, since wages remain low no matter how well the farms do.

Low-tech tools
Meanwhile, many of the 250,000 private Cuban farmers must plant and pick their crops by hand, plowing with oxen and watering with buckets.

In Guira de Melena, 30 miles south of Havana, El Guateque is one of three supply stores islandwide that are now allowed to sell supplies directly to private farmers. It offers small items such as gloves, machetes, hoes and horse bridles.

Such tools may be humble and low-tech, but they help to produce 60 percent of Cuba's total food output on just a third of its arable land.

In other moves to invigorate the industry, Cuba has settled outstanding debts to farmers and more than doubled what it pays milk and meat producers. Farmers say the government also is paying more for potatoes, coconuts, coffee and other products.

But if a farmland revolution is coming, it hasn't brought big profits to farmers yet. Diaz gets 2.50 pesos per quart of milk, up from one peso. A peso is worth slightly less than a nickel.

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