Cuba's food shortage is leading to a humanitarian crisis (2024)

FAQs

What is causing the food shortage in Cuba? ›

Cuba has long struggled with a lack of production. The lack of hard currency and needed equipment is making the situation even worse without agricultural supplies like insecticides and fertilizers, said Ricardo Torres, an economist at American University in Washington.

The Economic Impact

The Soviet Union supported Cuba by purchasing a share of its sugar and importing 63% of its food. After the Soviet Union's collapse, an economic downturn resulted in drastic reductions in state-subsidized rations and triggered widespread hunger in Cuba.

Overview. The vast majority of Cuban families rely, for their food intake, on the Libreta de Abastecimiento (literally, "Supplies booklet") distribution system, instated on 12 March 1962. The system establishes the rations each person is allowed to buy through the system, and the frequency of supplies.

Scarcity strikes Cuba with milk and bread being in short supply amid a deepening hard currency crisis. The government has now turned to the World Food Programme for assistance in an unprecedented move.

Conflict, economic shocks, climate extremes and soaring fertilizer prices are combining to create a food crisis of unprecedented proportions. As many as 309 million people are facing chronic hunger in 72 countries.

Cuba has been under a U.S. trade and financial embargo since the early 1960s, but there are several exceptions that allow for the export of food, agricultural products, medical supplies, humanitarian donations, and several other categories of goods if they are to be used by the private sector and not the government.

"The U.S. is the largest supplier of food to Cuba," Dr. Carlos Eire.

In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. President Kennedy did not want the Soviet Union and Cuba to know that he had discovered the missiles. He met in secret with his advisors for several days to discuss the problem.

The DRC continues to be at the center of the biggest hunger crisis in the world, one that's poised to affect 25.8 million people this year. This is fuelled by conflict, climate change, and a protracted economic crisis that has left 72% of the country's population living below the poverty line.

Powdered milk and other basic foods are provided to Cubans at a subsidised price through ration books, but delays and lack of supplies are common, especially at times of economic hardship.

Why is cow meat illegal in Cuba? ›

These severe laws are not for any religious reason, as many might wonder, they are simply the government's efforts to protect what remains of the domestic livestock. Most cattle in Cuba are designated for reproduction and milking, and oxen to plow the land and other working activities, they are not for meat.

Egg production in Cuba has plummeted by 50% because of the lack of feed and financing to buy the raw material to manufacture them, authorities admitted last year. Poultry production in Cuba is currently at 50 percent of capacity, both in terms of the number of animals and production.

More than 50 percent of Cuba's land is now fallow. The invasive Marabú weed covers nearly 20 per cent of the nation's territory, taking over a centuries-long legacy of unique agriculture on a unique soil. A country that easily produced its own food until 1960 is now fully dependent on food imports.

On 17 March 2024, protests began in Cuba, primarily in Santiago de Cuba, the country's second largest city, in protest of food shortages and power outages. Supported by: United States (claimed by Cuba, denied by U.S.) The country experienced what was described as the worst living crisis since the early 1990s.

After extensive consultation with his foreign policy and military advisers, Kennedy blockaded Cuba on October 22, 1962. The two sides stood on the brink of nuclear war, but Khrushchev capitulated six days later and the missiles were dismantled. In return, Kennedy disbanded its own missile sites in Turkey.

Egg production in Cuba has plummeted by 50% because of the lack of feed and financing to buy the raw material to manufacture them, authorities admitted last year. Poultry production in Cuba is currently at 50 percent of capacity, both in terms of the number of animals and production.

The government says U.S. sanctions, which have for decades complicated financial transactions and the purchase of fuel by Cuba, have combined with an increasingly acute economic crisis to bring the fuel shortfall to a head.

HAVANA — A new milk shortage has hit Cuba this month, as the country struggles to secure milk for children due to a decades-old subsidies scheme created by the late Fidel Castro. Milk deliveries for children aged six months to two years were delayed this month, according to Betsy Diaz, minister of interior commerce.

Cuba does not have a bountiful supply of food, because too few people know how to grow vegetables and fruits, plus the Cuban economy itself is deeply flawed, structurally. Too many people in urban areas of Cuba have become accustomed to having a free apartment and a cheap monthly food ration without having to work.