Bitter taste for Cuba as it imports sugar for the first time

Sugar: It's so quintessentially Cuban that a young, machete-wielding Fidel Castro used to hack away at the cane stalks vital to the Caribbean island economy.

Now, the long-time world leader in sugar production is importing the stuff for the first time, and in large amounts, from France after another bad harvest.

Sugar used to account for the vast majority of Cuba's exports. But the fall of its big brother, the Soviet Union – a key, hungry customer – changed everything, as did a lack of investment in seeds, fertilizer and pesticides. To wit: in the early 1990s, Cuba produced about eight million tons of sugar a year. A decade later, it reached two million a year.

Back then, sugar accounted for almost 75 percent of Cuban exports. In 2015, it was only 13 percent, with other products like nickel and tobacco making up some of the difference.

The 2017-2018 harvest suffered badly after Hurricane Irma ravaged the country, followed by a long rainy season.

So Cuba is importing sugar from France.

Whiter sugar

On the island, residents quickly caught wind of the somewhat counter-intuitive development.

Here, sugar from cane tends to be brownish. But the French version comes from the world, and the granules are finer. And that is what Cubans start receiving with their "libreta" – their ration book.

"The sugar we get now is very good. It is very sweet, not very different. The only difference is the color, "said Felicia Navarro, a 40-year-old homemaker.

The French government farm and seafood export agency FranceAgriMer said that from 2001 to 2017, Cuba had imported just three tons of sugar from France.

But in just three months this year – June, July and August – that number ballooned to 40,000 tones.

"This is the first time in history that Cuba is importing significant amounts of sugar from France," said FranceAgriMer.

Cuba imports most of the food it consumes. Yearly, it imports 400,000 tons of wheat.

'The Golden Age is over'

These new numbers are humiliating for Cuba, given its past as the world's largest producer of sugar and one of the biggest exporters. Until 1960, the US was one of its main customers.

Then came the Soviets, who bought Cuban sugar at a discounted price. These days, sugar production here is disappointing.

The expected annual amount is 1.6 million tones, but it is actually just 1.1 million. And it is no surprise that China to fulfill, said FranceAgriMer.

A British farm consultancy called FO Licht said it expects Cuban output to improve next season and reach 1.5 million tons – even if it is far from the big numbers it used to post in the 1980s.

Cuba's government blames the US trade embargo, which since 1962 has blocked imports of badly needed farm and industrial equipment.

"The Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said recently, adding his people were" condemned to die of hunger. "

The island nation lacks resources and hard currency, but there are also structural and logistical factors at play, said Cuban economist Omar Everleny Perez.

Cuba has been obsessed with diversifying its economy and making it less dependent on sugar exports.

"The Golden Age is about production capacity is not what it was," said Perez.

There are 150 factories in Cuba for processing sugar cane. Now there are only around 50.

Cuba should turn over 15 or so to foreign investors who have shown interest, he added.

A new draft national constitution that will be voted on in the future.

Otherwise, said Perez, Cuba runs the risk of being short on sugar in the next few years.

Published in Daily Times, October 25^th 2018.