Pinar del Río has the lowest tobacco planting in many years

[Nino]

No incentives, more pressure, less money - no wonder they go for other crops...

Pinar del Río has the lowest tobacco planting plan in many years
Of the 16,373 hectares previously announced, now that Cuban province will have only 13,921 hectares planted.

DDC  Pinar del Río 26 Dic 2021 - 11:31 CET

https://diariodecuba.com/cuba/1640514708_36418.html

 

Pinar del Río will reduce tobacco planting by more than 2,450 hectares for the 2021-2022 season, announced the authorities of Agriculture in the province, which regularly produces around 65% of this crop in Cuba.

 

According to the official newspaper Granma, when the planting of this plant began in October, the main export of Cuban agriculture, a plan of 16,373 hectares had been announced, a figure more than 570 hectares higher than that of the harvest of 2021.

 

However, Ortelio Rodríguez Perugorría, Deputy Delegate of Agriculture in Pinar del Río, announced that despite this forecast, a significant group of areas have been reduced, so that now the province aspires to reach around 13,921 hectares.

 

This, the official said, is the lowest planting plan in a long time.

 

According to the report, this downward adjustment occurred due to the deficit of fertilizers and other inputs that ensure the development of plantations.

 

Likewise, Rodríguez Perugorría said that the vegas that historically have provided the highest quality leaves and registered the best yields will be prioritized.

 

And although he reported that the state of the crop so far is favorable thanks largely to the climate, he said that in August the damage caused to the seedbeds by the rains of Hurricane Ida as well as the "resource limitations" forced to transfer the planting of about 3,000 hectares for the month of January, outside the optimal planting stage.

 

The note does not clarify whether among the factors that explain the decrease in planting is the measure adopted by the state-owned Tabacuba to reduce from 5% to 3% of the Freely Convertible Currency (MLC) that tobacco growers can access as a "stimulus" and only for the tobacco produced that the company considers "exportable".

 

This decision, and the consequent increase in the risk of investment in such a fragile and laborious crop, has made Cuban vegueros, already dissatisfied with the high cost of the inputs needed to produce tobacco and the insufficient amount paid by the company for the crops. , which for many makes the effort unsustainable, they are forced to bet on other crops.

[El Presidente]

If my memory/math's is correct, that is near a 50% reduction in 2006 plantings. 

Way to go Tabacuba 

 

[anacostiakat]

Just great.  

[99call]

I just don't understand.   Do they,  or do they not have a relationship with China,  mutual political standing, and shared interest?

China giving aid to Cuba, is not a return to the cold war or missile crisis.    Why on earth is China not working to enrich and stabilise Cuba?.   Simple things like supplying every roof top with solar units, provision of fuel etc etc. 

Surely if China now affectively owns Tabacuba, they have a vested interest in making it work?    I just don't get it. 

[Corylax18]

1 hour ago, therealrsr said:

Well merry frigin Christmas CC lovers, more supply pressure with pent up demand = no bueno.

Leaf grown this year wont be in boxes on the market until 2024 at the soonest, so it wont have any affect on short term supply. Despite the lower levels of plantings Cubatabaco still has more then enough filler/binder leaf to meet supply. But, they keep lowering the compensation for export grade wrappers, so they either need to keep increasing ring gauge to shove more filler into each wrapper leaf, or that filler just sits and keeps aging. Its been this way for years, so Im not surprised the limited recent production is high quality. The fillers have some age on them. 

1 hour ago, 99call said:

I just don't understand.   Do they,  or do they not have a relationship with China,  mutual political standing, and shared interest?

China giving aid to Cuba, is not a return to the cold war or missile crisis.    Why on earth is China not working to enrich and stabilise Cuba?.   Simple things like supplying every roof top with solar units, provision of fuel etc etc. 

Surely if China now affectively owns Tabacuba, they have a vested interest in making it work?    I just don't get it. 

They have a rocky, forced relationship with China. Based on some, lightly/loosely shared principles. Cuba regularly doesn't pay their debts or fulfill other portions of their obligations to china on other deals. China did flood Havana/the north cost resorts with hotel construction a few years ago, but that was roundly unsuccessful. (except one very nice hotel) 

A freshly created Hong Kong, or maybe Macau based(not Mainland Chinese) Shadow Investment firm (not operator) purchased 50% of the Promotion, Distribution, and Export function of Cuban cigars. Very importantly, they own 0% of the farming or manufacturing process. 

I'm not sure why anybody expected PdR to turn into a massive factory farm overnight. I don't expect anything to change in the Tobacco Growing industry in Cuba out of lock step with the rest of the country. 

[nKostyan]

I think it's too early to panic. In recent years, everyone has been reporting on the filling of the storages. In 2020/2021, there was a drop in cigar production, but tobacco was not consumed. Also, we do not know the proportion of planting under the wrapper, the shortage of which is always there.

[Nino]

7 hours ago, 99call said:

I just don't understand.   Do they,  or do they not have a relationship with China,  mutual political standing, and shared interest?

China giving aid to Cuba, is not a return to the cold war or missile crisis.    Why on earth is China not working to enrich and stabilise Cuba?.   Simple things like supplying every roof top with solar units, provision of fuel etc etc. 

Surely if China now effectively owns Tabacuba, they have a vested interest in making it work?    I just don't get it. 

Sorry to be a contrarian here - but : China does not own Tabacuba, in fact NO foreign company owns ANYTHING in Cuba. They just add money at the pleasure of the Cuban gvmt. to enterprises  without having control of them or even getting ROI out of Cuba.

China is just another cow to be milked in the context of the Cuban gvmt milking their protectors/benefactors from the USSR to Venezuela to whatever comes next ( and I dare to comment that it is even milking the good ol' USA by sending millions of people there and receiving a huge load of remittances while reducing the internal "pressure cooker" pressure ) ....

Corruption, theft and inefficiency is ingrained in the state/gvmt policies ( and the regular peoples minds ) - anyone who is sick & tired of this charade and doesn't want to lose his/her future gets the f##ck out of Cuba or ... plants other crops 😞

 

[99call]

39 minutes ago, Nino said:

Sorry to be a contrarian here - but : China does not own Tabacuba, in fact NO foreign company owns ANYTHING in Cuba. They just add money at the pleasure of the Cuban gvmt. to enterprises  without having control of them or even getting ROI out of Cuba.

China is just another cow to be milked in the context of the Cuban gvmt milking their protectors/benefactors from the USSR to Venezuela to whatever comes next ( and I dare to comment that it is even milking the good ol' USA by sending millions of people there and receiving a huge load of remittances while reducing the internal "pressure cooker" pressure ) ....

Corruption, theft and inefficiency is ingrained in the state/gvmt policies ( and the regular peoples minds ) - anyone who is sick & tired of this charade and doesn't want to lose his/her future gets the f##ck out of Cuba or ... plants other crops 😞

Very interesting post, and I will obviously defer to your live finger on the pulse Nino.....it all just beggars the question. Why bother to be so corrupt when there is so little to gain?.  Surely there must be some major revolution in this country in the next 20 years,  whether is be Capitalist or Communist,  you could argue both would be beneficial.  Anything other than being in a permanent zombie stasis 

[Nino]

1 minute ago, 99call said:

Very interesting post, and I will obviously defer to your live finger on the pulse Nino.....it all just beggars the question. Why bother to be so corrupt when there is so little to gain?.  Surely there must be some major revolution in this country in the next 20 years,  whether is be Capitalist or Communist,  you could argue both would be beneficial.  Anything other than being in a permanent zombie stasis 

You are perfectly right and correct.

1) There is a lot to be gained by the small clique in the regime so it is worth preserving. It works well for them.

2) I had the same exact thoughts some 20 years ago. Surely there must be either explosion or implosion in that country. Change. Anything.

Guess what - theý are still Zombies and doing well.... 🙂