Cuba: Balance de la Agricultura 2012 [Oficial]

granma/ Sheyla Delgado Guerra

ya con barriguita como corresponde

Señaló el ministro de la Agricultura [Gustavo Rodríguez Rollero-foto] en el Balance de los resultados del MINAG durante el 2012:

"Hay que planificar y hacerlo bien, partiendo de la integralidad en cada uno de los elementos que garantizan la producción de alimentos. Las cosas en la agricultura no pueden hacerse ‘a corta y clava’", aseveró el titular del Ministerio de la Agricultura (MINAG), Gustavo Rodríguez Rollero, al evaluar los resultados del calendario anterior.
Cómo salir del bache de las deficiencias contractuales, incumplimientos productivos, cobros y pagos pendientes —fuera de término— y dificultades que persisten en el proceso de entrega de tierras ociosas en usufructo, así como las estrategias para perfeccionar el trabajo en materia de salud animal y fitosanitaria, entre otros tópicos, devinieron diana de los debates.
Pedro Olivera Gutiérrez, director del Centro Nacional de Control de la Tierra, destacó que la meta más inmediata es continuar centrando esfuerzos y gestiones en poner a producir las más de 1 millón 529 mil hectáreas entregadas en usufructo. Al concluir diciembre último, fueron tramitados 189 mil 954 expedientes y, de ellos, se aprobaron 174 mil 316 (91,8 %).
En cuanto a los resultados productivos del 2012, la viceministra de Economía del MINAG, Moraima Céspedes Morales, dijo que aun cuando no se logran los compromisos fijados en el plan, se creció en 16 indicadores, entre los que están: arroz, miel de abeja, carne ovino-caprina...
Abundó la viceministra en que ocho renglones decrecieron y los incumplimientos fundamentales se deben: en el caso de las viandas no se logró la producción prevista de papa, la cual fue del 93 %; también se afectaron 231mil toneladas de plátano en las provincias orientales como consecuencia del huracán Sandy.
Según se supo, aunque se sobrecumplió en un 9 % la producción de frijoles, las entregas al balance no corrieron con igual "suerte" por irrespeto al contrato en unos casos y, en otros, por desvío del producto, la inejecución de inversiones en riego, mecanización y secado.
Sobre la leche vacuna, si bien crece su producción en relación con el 2011, para saltar la "varilla" necesitaba un poco más de los 484 millones de litros logrados (91 % de lo planificado), lo cual se limitó por bajos rendimientos (3,8 litros por vaca en ordeño), hendiduras en los contratos y el mal estado físico de más de 5 000 vacas. A pesar de lo anterior, las entregas a la industria láctea crecieron en un 9 % en comparación con diciembre del 2011.
En la contratación económica se dieron pasos de avance, pero el cambio de mentalidad que exigió la extinción del Contrato Único no estuvo a la altura de lo que se esperaba de las organizaciones económicas y las entidades de ese sistema, y no se alistaron en tiempo muchas de ellas para la negociación oportuna del contrato con las unidades productoras. A lo anterior se unió la falta de credibilidad de los campesinos en lo concerniente a la disponibilidad de insumos por la empresa agropecuaria a la hora de proceder con esta a la firma contractual.
De las cuentas por cobrar y pagar en general, existen considerables montos vencidos (1 098 millones de pesos a cobrar y 1 011 millones a pagar), que han llevado a un proceso de depuración contable para acabar de una vez con los detonantes de índole económica y financiera, y sacar a varias empresas de la descapitalización.

Todos estos factores, junto a otras dificultades, impidieron que al completarse la vuelta del calendario anterior el sistema de la Agricultura cerrara con resultados alentadores en su contabilidad: pierden 218 entidades, mientras 212 culminan con utilidades, independientemente de que crecieran las ventas netas y la producción mercantil.

Does Dairy Industry want Aspartame in Milk as a Hidden Additive?

TheAlexJonesChannel

You probably already know that the FDA has declared war on raw milk and even helped fund and coordinate armed government raids against raw milk farmers and distributors. Yes, it's insane. This brand of tyranny is unique to the USA and isn't even conducted in China, North Kora or Cuba. Only in the USA are raw milk farmers treated like terrorists.

But now the situation is getting even more insane than you could have imagined: the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) have filed a petition with the FDA asking the FDA to alter the definition of "milk" to secretly include chemical sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose.

Importantly, none of these additives need to be listed on the label. They will simply be swept under the definition of "milk," so that when a company lists "milk" on the label, it automatically includes aspartame or sucralose. And if you're trying to avoid aspartame, you'll have no way of doing so because it won't be listed on the label.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/039244_mil...

Venezuela: Plenty of Oil, Not Enough Food

capitolhillcubans

By Amb. Otto Reich in The Wall Street Journal:

In Venezuela, Plenty of Oil, Not Enough Food

It's the old story: Socialist government interferes with the marketplace, and the result is scarcity.

There are now reports of severe food shortages in Venezuela, including milk, bread, sugar, poultry, dairy products and cooking oil. Vice President Nicolás Maduro—running the country in the absence of ailing President Hugo Chávez—has threatened Venezuela's businessmen with unspecified punishment for "hoarding food." Last week the government devalued the nation's currency, bringing even more misery to consumers.

None of this should be surprising. Shortages are inevitable when socialist governments interfere with free markets through price and other controls. Then government officials blame the growers, manufacturers, distributors or retailers that the government itself is bankrupting.

What do Mr. Maduro's threats portend for Venezuelans? For clues, examine the recent history of other socialist or Marxist governments including Cuba, the model that Messrs. Chávez, Maduro and their chavista disciples proudly admit to follow.

First the population cannot find food to eat and thus protests spread. Heads of households buy scarce edibles on the black market, trying to feed their families but becoming de facto lawbreakers in the process. The government denounces the shopkeepers and protesters as "counterrevolutionaries" and "agents of American imperialism."

People and money flee the country, beginning with the job creators: financiers, investors, professionals, the highly educated, entrepreneurs, managers and eventually the workers and peasants in whose name the "revolution" is carried out.

To stem the flight of capital, the government imposes currency controls. It progressively monopolizes political, economic, judicial, military and police powers. Foreign investment slows to a trickle or stops. Companies begin to close due to lack of supplies or of demand, or are confiscated by the authorities, who add insult to injury by accusing them of economic sabotage and lack of patriotism.

In Cuba, food shortages began about six months after Fidel Castro began imposing Marxist policies in 1959. This was a full three years before the U.S. enacted an economic embargo that many today routinely and incorrectly blame for the Castro-era scarcities. Castro "solved" shortages by rationing food.

In another former middle-income country, Chile, socialist President Salvador Allende generated food shortages quickly after taking over in 1970. His violent overthrow in 1973 was preceded by vast demonstrations of citizens marching through the streets banging empty pots and pans—a form of popular protest called cacerolazos. The empty cooking devices symbolized the Chileans' inability to feed their families.

It took 14 years for scarcities to reach crisis levels in Venezuela under Mr. Chávez, mostly because that nation is blessed with the world's largest proven oil reserves. But even with a national income in excess of $300 billion, as reported by the World Bank, socialism has produced shortages in prosperous Venezuela as it has in previously agriculturally self-sufficient Cuba and Chile. There are already cacerolazos protests in Venezuela.

Based on experience in Cuba, the former USSR and Eastern Europe during the Cold War, the ruin brought about by socialist economic policies inexorably leads to further government repression. The press is censored, with the government justifying its actions by pretending to protect the people from press "falsehoods" about the reasons for "temporary" shortages. Coercion and hunger swell public anger. Protesters are beaten, jailed and occasionally executed. To prevent reports of dissent from reaching foreign ears, the government supplants independent press with government-run media, because even tyrants abhor bad publicity.

Inevitably, all dissent, especially that at the grass roots, must be extinguished lest someone reveal that the Emperor has no clothes. If the people are so ungrateful or foolish as to not understand that all the central government's actions are being imposed upon them for their own good, then they will have to be taught that lesson by force.

Millions of Cubans can attest to this wretched state of affairs. Not so the more than 6,000 Cubans who have been killed over the last half century for opposing the Cuban model of socialism—a model that even Fidel Castro finally admitted, in 2010, "doesn't even work for us anymore." Socialism is obviously not working in Venezuela either.

Courting Castro's Monopoly

Capitolhillcubans

From the Daily Record of Lawrence County, Illinois:

During the June 28-July 2 tour, the Farm Bureau delegation, among other stops, visited a flour mill, the country's Chamber of Commerce, a farmer co-op, the Ministry of Agriculture, a farmers market and Alimport, the state-run organization responsible for making decisions on all food imports into Cuba.

[Farm Bureau leaders] noted that the group was always watched and listened to by government representatives, were given a list of topics they could not talk about, including politics, told they could not take pictures of certain things, including military personnel. A request to take a tour out into the country, where farmers raise chickens and have some crops, was denied. It is also an area where poverty is at its worst.

An Economic Explanation for the Horsemeat Scandal

freakonomics

From the Independent:

A law banning horses from Romanian roads may be responsible for the surge in the fraudulent sale of horsemeat on the European beef market, a French politician said yesterday.
Horse-drawn carts were a common form of transport for centuries in Romania, but hundreds of thousands of the animals are feared to have been sent to the abattoir after the change in road rules.
The law, which was passed six years ago but only enforced recently, also banned carts drawn by donkeys, leading to speculation among food-industry officials in France that some of the “horse meat” which has turned up on supermarket shelves in Britain, France and Sweden may, in fact, turn out to be donkey meat. “Horses have been banned from Romanian roads and millions of animals have been sent to the slaughterhouse,” said Jose Bove, a veteran campaigner for small farmers who is now vice-president of the European Parliament agriculture committee.

Agricultura en Cuba: Malas noticias, peores augurios

diariodecuba

Elías Amor

Acaba de ser publicada por la Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas de Cuba, ONE, el documento "Sector agropecuario. Indicadores seleccionados, enero-diciembre 2012", que muestra, a partir de una serie de datos estadísticos, por qué la economía castrista sigue teniendo problemas para dar de comer a los cubanos, viéndose inmersa en la necesidad de realizar cuantiosas importaciones de productos agrícolas.

La agricultura castrista aparece ante el analista externo como un sector catastrófico, consecuencia de las políticas adoptadas por el régimen revolucionario en sus primeros años, bien conocidas de todos: confiscación y robo sistemático de propiedades a sus legítimos dueños, limitaciones en la superficie de tierra explotada por privados, obligatoriedad de producción y de venta al Estado, fracaso en suma de la planificación estatal.

En los últimos años, la política de los "Lineamientos", introducida por Raúl Castro para "actualizar el socialismo", ha dado algunos pasos en la línea de liberalizar la pesada e ineficiente estructura creada por Fidel Castro. Pero los resultados dejan mucho que desear. En esta publicación que acaba de divulgar ONE en su página web, se comprende por qué.

La postración, improductividad e ineficiencia del sector es consecuencia de un modelo de derechos de propiedad que consagra al Estado totalitario como dueño principal, frenando las transacciones libres a través de los precios de mercado. Esta resistencia del régimen castrista a la libertad económica es similar a lo que plantea respecto de las libertades políticas. Países que han tenido éxito en el viaje de las obsoletas estructuras estalinistas al capitalismo, como China y Vietnam, apostaron por la libertad de su agricultura, la extensión de la propiedad privada y el comercio libre. Los resultados con respecto al castrismo simplemente no admiten comparación.

En esta publicación elaborada por ONE, que presenta datos de 2012, se observa la mediocridad del alcance de las reformas introducidas en la agricultura, y la imposibilidad de que estos cambios estéticos y parciales puedan dar solución a los graves problemas de fondo de la economía nacional.

Ventas libres versus ventas contratadas

En primer lugar, se observa que en 2012 la participación de la venta que los agricultores pueden realizar libremente a los mercados agropecuarios —los que realmente alimentan a la población—, se mantiene en un bajo porciento del total. En hortalizas se ha alcanzado el porcentaje más elevado, con un 16%, seguido de las viandas, con un 10,2%. En plátanos apenas se alcanza otro 10% de la producción, en el maíz un 8,4% y en el arroz, de gran consumo diario, apenas un 2,3%. En los frijoles se alcanza un 6,5% y en frutas, los cítricos, otro 3,5%.

Cabe preguntarse entonces, quién es el que concentra la mayor parte de la distribución de alimentos en la Isla. La respuesta la tenemos en esta publicación. Las llamadas "ventas contratadas" a través de ese invento castrista, funesto para todos los cubanos, llamado Acopio, rara vez desciende del 50%, llegando al 84% en los cítricos y al 78% del arroz consumido.

En esta economía mediocre y controlada por el Estado, lo que las autoridades denominan "autoconsumo y ventas a trabajadores" que se producen en la misma dinámica estatal e ineficiente de la producción, se concentra más del 20% de la producción.

Esa baja participación de los mercados agropecuarios dificulta la alimentación de la población, mantiene los precios altos y en condiciones de fuerte subida, produce insatisfacción a los productores y arruina a los consumidores. Tal distribución debe evolucionar y adaptarse a lo que es normal en cualquier otra economía mundial: mayor peso de los mercados y de los precios libres en la atención a la demanda de los consumidores. Este simple cambio debería bastar para aumentar los registros anuales de producción, si se realizan las reformas en los mercados de aprovisionamiento, productos fitosanitarios, fertilizantes o mano de obra.

Malas noticias, peores augurios

El recuento que se realiza en el informe de la evolución de la producción muestra unos resultados muy deficientes en la mayoría de productos agrícolas. Por ejemplo, se registran descensos en la producción con respecto al año anterior en tubérculos y raíces, un 2%; en particular, en papa casi un 22% de disminución; en hortalizas, una caída del 4%; que en el caso del tomate casi alcanza un 8%; en ajo, un 17%; cebollas un 18%; frijol, un 5%; en el caso del cacao, hasta casi un 40% de disminución; en los cítricos, un 33% de descenso respecto 2011.

En otras producciones se registran aumentos (pimiento, pepino, arroz, tabaco), pero en su mayoría, se trata de variaciones muy modestas y poco representativas en la dieta diaria de alimentación de la población.

Por otro lado, lo importante de estos datos de descensos más destacados es el hecho de que estos se explican por la caída registrada en la superficie de ámbito estatal, más que en aquella que se destina a usos privados.

El régimen observa con preocupación que la producción privada experimenta crecimientos muy significativos, mientras que los rendimientos en la superficie estatal caen en picado. En tales condiciones, la pregunta es, ¿por qué no se agilizan al máximo los procesos de entregas de tierras y se generalizan nuevas formas contractuales que permitan a los agricultores elegir libremente sus tamaños de explotación, producciones y procesos de asociación?

Y más. Si la producción agrícola se puede calificar de decepcionante, los datos relativos a la ganadería producen, cuanto menos, alarma. En porcino, que es básico en la dieta de los cubanos, se registra una caída de la producción del 18,3%, que en el caso de la carne reproductora cae hasta un 81,8% con relación al año anterior, lo que anticipa producciones más bajas en años próximos, y previsiblemente importaciones elevadas de Estados Unidos.

En lo que respecta a la producción avícola, los datos son incluso peores. Los huevos prácticamente disminuyen sus cifras en un 75,6% respecto a 2011, convirtiéndolos nuevamente en artículos de lujo. La carne para consumo desciende un 0,7%, que en el caso de las ventas totales llega a un 3,2%.

¿Por qué se producen estos resultados tan decepcionantes?

Una vez más, la respuesta se obtiene al comprobar que la producción destinada libremente a los mercados agropecuarios, alcanza, en promedio, menos del 10%, muy por debajo de los productos agrícolas, en tanto que las ventas obligatorias, a Acopio, suponen en ganado vacuno, leche, huevos y porcino, casi el 90% del total.

Mientras no se avance en la redistribución de la libre comercialización de productos, la agricultura castrista seguirá siendo un lastre.

Neokaxtrizmo y huevos

Yahily Hernández Porto

juventudrebelde.cu

CAMAGÜEY.— Aunque la causa principal de la baja producción de la Empresa Avícola camagüeyana en el pasado año fue el no abastecimiento en tiempo del alimento animal para sus más de 659 000 aves, existen otras realidades que también han influido en el desplome, muchas de las cuales pudieran seguir afectando este importante renglón para la alimentación en la provincia y el país en el año que comienza.

«Al cierre del mes de diciembre el déficit de huevos superaba los 25,2 millones. Las pérdidas de gallinas ponedoras sobrepasaban las 20 000 y la caída económico-financiera ascendía a los 6,5 millones de pesos», informó Adelfo Díaz Méndez, director del Complejo Avícola Nacional en Camagüey (CANC), perteneciente al Ministerio de la Agricultura (Minag).

Una mirada integral al decrecimiento productivo que exhibe dicha entidad revela otras causas, como la insuficiente organización del proceso productivo y fallas en la relación de la entidad con sus suministradores de alimentos para mantener la vitalidad de los animales.

La conjugación de estos factores ha impedido el avance productivo y financiero del sector avícola aquí. El actual decrecimiento productivo no está en correspondencia con lo planteado en el Lineamiento 192 de la Política Económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución.

En él se precisa que hay que continuar el desarrollo del programa ganadero en las actividades vacuna, bufalina, porcina, avícola y de ganado menor, potenciando el desarrollo genético de los rebaños para aumentar la producción de proteína, incrementando las fuentes nacionales de alimento animal.

Impactos sobre el 2013

Después de un 2011 satisfactorio, en el que dicha Empresa cumplió su producción de huevos, logró utilidades y creció en varios de sus renglones económicos y productivos, en 2012 el ritmo de los resultados retrocedió en sus 17 unidades empresariales de base (UEB) avícolas, al punto de que su plan productivo anual de 110 000 millones de huevos no pudo concretarse.

Adelfo Díaz Méndez explicó que al concluir 2012 las pérdidas económicas de la Empresa alcanzaron los cinco millones de pesos. El impacto negativo de esta regresión productiva en el sector avícola preocupa a sus directivos y trabajadores, pues no puede verse desligado de las consecuencias futuras.

«Esta situación perjudica la eficiencia y estabilidad productiva de nuestra institución en el año que se inicia, porque al decrecer la masa de aves no hay garantía de gallinas jóvenes ponedoras para reponer el rebaño de aves», dijo Yoandry Abad Escobar, director adjunto del CANC.

«O sea —explicó el joven directivo—, para 2013 los animales no tendrán su potencial genético (capacidad máxima del animal productiva y reproductiva)».

Rubén Hernández Cereno, especialista agroindustrial y forestal principal en esta entidad, subrayó que entre las decisiones para amortiguar esta situación el año que comienza está el reciclaje de aves.

«Para compensar el déficit actual de las   20 000 gallinas decidimos efectuar, para el primer semestre de 2013, el reciclaje de unas 50 000 que, aunque terminaron su vida útil-productiva, deberán mantenerse produciendo», explicó. Aunque, en definitiva es emplear alimentos y recursos materiales y humanos en animales cuyos rendimientos serán inferiores.

Elio Pardo Mora, director económico del CANC, comunicó que otro problema que genera a la Empresa esta situación es su descapitalización.

«La institución funciona con 7 400 000 pesos menos de capital como consecuencia de la caída productiva, lo que indica que las obligaciones contraídas con suministradores y otros podrían ser incumplidas», dijo el director económico.

Más allá del pienso

A finales del pasado año la provincia no solo continuaba estancada en la producción de huevos, sino que se veía precisada a incrementar los niveles de importación de este alimento desde otros territorios del país para el consumo social y para abastecer la alta demanda de la canasta familiar normada, en más de 34 millones de huevos, muy por encima de los 22 millones planificados para 2012», comentó el director Adelfo Díaz.

«El incumplimiento en la entrega de alimento animal al CANC —de unas 3 000 toneladas hasta al cierre de la información para este reportaje— por parte de la UEB Fábrica de Pienso agramontina Tato Rodríguez Vedo, representaba unos 45 días de consumo para más de 350 000 gallinas ponedoras, sus reemplazos y reproductoras.

Continuar leyendo en juventudrebelde >>

‘El Hueco’: Havana market offers Cuba a taste of capitalism in the dark

Global Post/ Nick Miroff

adictamente.blogspot.com

HAVANA, Cuba — Cuba has yet to grasp the invisible hand of Adam Smith, but it is giving some space to an invisible market.

Invisible, at least, during the day.

At night, in an empty lot at the edge of Havana’s Mariano district, an extraordinary gathering of freewheeling commerce has been taking place in recent months.

Every evening after sundown, trucks and tractors from all across the island arrive loaded with fresh produce, queuing up for hours just to secure a parking spot. Throwing open their tailgates, farmers and wholesale vendors shout out their wares and cut deals in cash under the faint glow of cellphone screens and lanterns. Young men lugging tomato crates and sacks of yams swarm between the rows of trucks, dodging pushcarts vendors on makeshift tricycle carts piled high with pineapples and cucumbers.

For now, it’s the closest thing Cuba has to the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and a big development in a country where state bureaucrats have tried to set the price for produce for decades.

“What is this place called?” a visiting reporter asked a young vendor.

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “We call it ‘El Hueco’ [The Hole].”

It wasn’t hard to see why. The lot becomes a muddy mess in the rain, and, on Wednesday and Sunday nights, it’s so clogged with pushcarts that traffic jams form, pulling buyers deeper into the scrum. There are no bathrooms, no garbage cans and no signs, adding to the impression that communist authorities haven’t quite decided whether to let the market flourish or shut it down.

“This is great because we can sell wholesale here. We don’t have to go out in the streets and try to find customers,” said Yulian Castillo, 28, who was offering banana bunches and 100-pound sacks of taro root for 260 pesos — about $12.

Castillo had to sell two-thirds of this year’s taro crop to the state, which only allows farmers to sell their harvest at market rates once they’ve met their production quotas. But Castillo said the government gave him a decent price this year, and he was free to sell the rest here.

“I like farming, but I like this better,” he said, looking out at the swarming market. “I like coming here, doing business, buying and selling. I never get bored doing this, I’m always on the move,” he said.

Cuba has millions of acres of fertile farmland, but it imports some 70 percent of its food, costing the government $1.5 billion last year. Communist authorities’ perpetual struggle to get local farmers to produce more has forced them to concede a great role for private incentive in agriculture, a shift that is only beginning to extend to the rest of the economy.

And while in towns and cities across the country the government has long permitted retail produce markets that function largely on supply-and-demand market principles, there hasn’t been a central wholesale market where growers from all over the island can sell in bulk quantities.

The market is a boon to farmers and fruit-and-vegetable middlemen, who said it allows the wheels of commerce to turn more efficiently by giving them a direct relationship to retail vendors.

One group of farmers at the market last Wednesday had hauled their lemons all the way across the island from Santiago de Cuba — 500 miles away. There were onion growers from central Cuba’s Sancti Spiritus province in rumbling 1950s-era Ford farm trucks, and mongers from Matanzas selling squash at half the price of those at the city’s retail markets.

Alejandro Manzo had driven 200 miles from his farm in the Villa Clara province, his family’s 1957 Chevy Bel Air stuffed with garlic. 

In the past, the police would have tried to seize his produce on the highway, he said. “I used to have to sell on the black market,” said Manzo. “But now the state sees us farmers differently. It’s letting us get ahead. There’s nothing illegal about this anymore — it’s just supply and demand.”

Manzo said he makes the trip to the capital every 10 days, selling braided ropes of garlic in 100-head strands for $12 — $3 more than he’d get back home.

Since taking over Cuba’s presidency in 2008, Raul Castro has made agriculture reform one of his signature policy moves, distributing some 3 million acres of underperforming state land to private farmers and cooperatives.

But his government still hasn’t taken basic steps to boost production and eliminate the farming bureaucracy that often ends up making Cuban produce more expensive for consumers. Cuban farmers still can’t buy new tractors or trucks, relying instead upon rusting Soviet machinery and 50-year-old American farm equipment.

While Havana residents say there’s more food than ever in their markets, prices have risen faster than Cubans’ meager pensions and government salaries, leaving many to complain that the state should intervene more, not less.

One reason for the market distortion, economists say, is the growing inequality in Havana between Cubans who work in low-paid government posts and those who have access to hard currency sent by relatives abroad or through jobs in tourism and private business. It’s one of several reasons that liberalization measures like the new wholesale market haven’t yet led to lower prices for Cuban consumers.

“The growth of all the new [private] restaurants and snack bars has also kept demand high,” said University of Havana economist Juan Triana.

As the government has loosened restrictions on private farmers’ ability to hire laborers, rural wages have risen, he said. “Before farmers could pay workers 15 or 20 pesos [80 cents] a day. Now it’s 40 pesos [$1.50].”

With more money to be made in farming, anecdotal evidence also suggests Cuba is slowing the trend of rural-to-urban migration that left farmers complaining of too few young people interested in growing crops.

Abel Ramos, 35, had arrived at the market at dusk, but with the line of trucks stretching down the road, he said he didn’t expect to get a spot in the market until after midnight.

The wait would be worth it, he said. “Three or four years ago, I used to grow tomatoes and they would go bad while I waited for the state to buy them,” said Ramos. “Not anymore. Now I can come here.”

“This is a beautiful thing,” he said.

Cuba-EEUU: Las manzanas del Diablo

Leer en BBC >>

$7 a gallon for milk?

CNNMoney

With Congress spending all its time trying to avert the fiscal cliff, a slew of other legislative matters are going unattended. One of them is the agriculture bill which, if not addressed, could lead to a doubling of the price of milk early next year.

It works like this: In order to keep dairy farmers in businesses, the government agrees to buy milk and other products if the price gets too low. The current agriculture bill has a formula that means the government steps in if the price of milk were to drop by roughly half from its current national average of about $3.65 a gallon.

Problem is, the current bill expired last summer, and Congress had been unable to agree on a new one. Several protections for farmers have already expired, and several more are set to do so over the next few months. One of them is the dairy subsidy, which expires January 1.

But instead of leaving farmers entirely out in the cold, the law states that if a new bill isn't passed or the current one extended, the formula for calculating the price the government pays for dairy products reverts back to a 1949 statute. Under that formula, the government would be forced to buy milk at twice today's price -- driving up the cost for everyone.

"If you like anything made with milk, you're going to be impacted by the fact that there's no farm bill," U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack told CNN's Candy Crowley in an interview on State of the Union airing Sunday, Dec. 30.

"Consumers are going to be a bit shocked when instead of seeing $3.60 a gallon for milk, they see $7 a gallon for milk. And that's going to ripple throughout all of the commodities if this thing goes on for an extended period of time," Vilsack said.

Related: Independent farms rake in millions

Sky-high milk prices wouldn't necessarily be good for dairy farmers either, according to Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents over 30,000 dairy farmers.

While it might provide a short term boost to profits, there's a fear that consumers would either cut back on dairy or opt for imported dairy products. It could also force food makers to search for alternatives to dairy, like soy.

"We call it the dairy cliff," Galen said.

Fortunately, there's still time for Congress to act.

Galen said the government would have to issue a notice saying it was going to pay the increased price for dairy products, then set up a schedule for when purchases would start, a process that could take a few weeks.

"It's not like people would dump blocks of cheese on the USDA's front lawn January first," he said.

Cuba: "Luchadores" y Mercado Agricola [Video]

a pesar de la brevedad del material del new york times, se aprecia el dinamismo que desde ciertamente condiciones rudimentarias y primitivas, va alcanzando el mercado de los productos agropecuarios en cuba. por diversas razones que van desde el rechazo acerrimo a lo que provenga de la isla, hasta la obnubilacion intelectual alimentada por grants; un amplio sector de los "opinadores" exilares, no logra distinguir lo nuevo y positivo de ciertas dinamicas desatadas a partir de las aun timidas e incompletas reformas. lo cierto es que cualquiera de los luchadores que se muestran en el video, contribuye real y efectivamente mas a una transicion en la isla, que decenas de "criteriosos" obcecados. 

y lo notable que no se aprecia, reside en que los "luchadores" lo logran en la medida en que son consecuentes con sus propios intereses, al aprovechar y ensachar los espacios que el regimen concede. alguien por ahi desearia que pusieran un cartel de abajo raul en su camion o carretilla, sin comprender que asi no funciona la vida real. 

Cuba’s Free-Market Farm Experiment Yields a Meager Crop

The New York Times/  By DAMIEN CAVE

“This place, it feeds all of Havana,” said Misael Toledo, 37, who owns three small food stores in the city. “Before, you could only buy or sell in the markets of Fidel.”

The agriculture exchange, which sprang up last year after the Cuban government legalized a broader range of small businesses, is a vivid sign of both how much the country has changed, and of all the political and practical limitations that continue to hold it back.

President Raúl Castro has made agriculture priority No. 1 in his attempt to remake the country. He used his first major presidential address in 2007 to zero in on farming, describing weeds conquering fallow fields and the need to ensure that “anyone who wants can drink a glass of milk.”

No other industry has seen as much liberalization, with a steady rollout of incentives for farmers. And Mr. Castro has been explicit about his reasoning: increasing efficiency and food production to replace imports that cost Cuba hundreds of millions of dollars a year is a matter “of national security.”

Yet at this point, by most measures, the project has failed. Because of waste, poor management, policy constraints, transportation limits, theft and other problems, overall efficiency has dropped: many Cubans are actually seeing less food at private markets. That is the case despite an increase in the number of farmers and production gains for certain items. A recent study from the University of Havana showed that market prices jumped by nearly 20 percent in 2011 alone. And food imports increased to an estimated $1.7 billion last year, up from $1.4 billion in 2006.

“It’s the first instance of Cuba’s leader not being able to get done what he said he would,” said Jorge I. Domínguez, vice provost for international affairs at Harvard, who left Cuba as a boy. “The published statistical results are really very discouraging.”

A major cause: poor transportation, as trucks are in short supply, and the aging ones that exist often break down.

In 2009, hundreds of tons of tomatoes, part of a bumper crop that year, rotted because of a lack of transportation by the government agency charged with bringing food to processing centers.

“It’s worse when it rains,” said Javier González, 27, a farmer in Artemisa Province who described often seeing crops wilt and rot because they were not picked up.

Behind him were the 33 fertile, rent-free acres he had been granted as part of a program Mr. Castro introduced in 2008 to encourage rural residents to work the land. After clearing it himself and planting a variety of crops, Mr. Gonzalez said, he was doing relatively well and earned more last year than his father, who is a doctor, did.

But Cuba’s inefficiencies gnawed at him. Smart, strong, and ambitious, he had expansion plans in mind, even as in his hand he held a wrench. He was repairing a tractor part meant to be grading land. It was broken. Again.

The 1980s Soviet model tractor he bought from another farmer was as about good as it gets in Cuba. The Cuban government maintains a monopoly on selling anything new, and there simply is not enough of anything — fertilizer, or sometimes even machetes — to go around.

Government economists are aware of the problem. “If you give people land and no resources, it doesn’t matter what happens on the land,” said Joaquin Infante of the Havana-based Cuban National Association of Economists.

But Mr. Castro has refused to allow what many farmers and experts see as an obvious solution to the shortages of transportation and equipment: Let people import supplies on their own. “It’s about control,” said Philip Peters, a Cuba analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based research group.

Other analysts agree, noting that though the agricultural reforms have gone farther than other changes — like those that allow for self-employment — they remain constrained by politics.

“The government is not ready to let go,” said Ted Henken, a Latin American studies professor at Baruch College. “They are sending the message that they want to let go, or are trying to let go, but what they have is still a mechanism of control.”

For many farmers, that explains why land leases last for 10 years with a chance to renew, not indefinitely or the 99 years offered to foreign developers. It is also why many farmers say they will not build homes on the land they lease, despite a concession this year to allow doing so.

Mistrust is widespread. To get the growth Mr. Castro wants in agriculture and the economy, people need to trust the government, analysts say. But after half a century of strict control, many Cubans doubt proclamations from officials, who insist that this time, despite previous crackdowns, private enterprise will be supported.

Some farmers still wonder when the government is going to swoop in and take what they have built.

“What concerns me is that in a place like this, after five or six years the state might need the land to complete some kind of project,” said Reinaldo Berdecia, who is raising cows outside Havana.

Cubans also say they worry that the bureaucrats responsible for managing the country’s complex mix of state-run and private agriculture lack the knowledge needed to make the system work. In the fall, there were piles of bananas rotting all over Havana, for example. Farmers say the government guaranteed a price that was too high, failing to recognize that because bananas require less investment and their planting season is short, farmers would overproduce.

At a recent visit to the market near the Havana airport, these frustrations, hopes and fears were on view. From the backs of trucks as old as retirees, sunburned farmers in black rubber boots tossed onions, lettuce and other items to colleagues who weighed them for sale, as a crush of buyers approached. Every truck that arrived was immediately surrounded, mostly by young men shouting and elbowing for access.

It was a sign that demand still outpaces supply, and in the middle of the rush to buy wholesale, not everyone seemed certain free markets were the way to go. Wary government inspectors watched for sales occurring before the official start time of 6 p.m. Jose Ramón Murgado, 40, a member of the farmers union, said the government had introduced too much chaos into the system.

“Capitalism means higher prices,” he said. “That’s the problem.”

But high prices were also leading to adaptation and efficiency. Some farmers from eastern Cuba said they held back loads of onions, a chief ingredient in sofrito sauce, a basis of Cuban cuisine, until after harvest season, because they could earn more per pound. Other farmers watching nearby seemed ready to follow their lead.

For Mr. Castro and his government, the success or failure of the reforms with agriculture and other parts of the economy may come down to these innovators who inspire others to greater productivity — people like Mr. Toledo, the owner of three small stores that he supplies with produce from the market.

He spent a decade driving trucks in Florida and Spain, and with confidence, a few extra pounds and some money saved, he returned a year ago to take advantage of Cuba’s new opportunities.

He has his own truck now, along with six employees scouring the market for deals. Agriculture has given him a boost, as it has others who have taken a chance on private farming. But the question many across Cuba are asking is: How far will Mr. Castro’s socialist government let them rise?

Maltinga robo-ilusionaria

la especulaciones en torno a la salud del moringuero en jefe quedan solventadas, al conocerse que el Fondo Canadiense para Iniciativas Locales  financio con solo 21 mil dolares la creacion del brebaje Maltinga, que obtiene como principal resultado lo que ninguno de los reales y/o supuestos pero siempre bien presupuestados enemigos del moribundo en jefe habian anhelado.

siempre estaran los que point a finger en lo canadienses que financian los proyectos de quien tu sabes [remember sherrit international, la terminal 3 del aeropuerto jose marti, etc, etc,...], en vez de apoyar directa y abiertamente las tan caras libertades  del cubano de a pie, empezando por no colaborar con el regimen en la concesion de visas en su consulado en labana.

considerando quien ha sido el autor intelectual y principal impulsor de la facturacion de la pocima con pretensiones de premio nobel, realmente es una gran ingratitud denominarla "maltinga", pues mas apropiado seria "fidinga".

o como rima Salcedo

Ni tarde ni perezosa

apareció la maltinga,

la bebida de moringa

y afrecho (que es cualquier cosa).

Post-industrial, post-sabrosa

y exclusiva del batey,

sabe a urea de mamey

con sostenibilidad,

reflexión, senilidad

y nostalgias del Caney.

detalles aqui >>

Prioridad Cero = Leche + Boniato + calabaza + ...n+1

Los kuadros del asunto: Agricultura, Economía y Planificación, Finanzas y Precios, Banco Central, Comisión de Implementación de los Lineamientos del Sexto Congreso del Partido

siendo intrinseco a la dinamica del sistema de "gestion" del regimen [castrista en su momento, neocastrista hoy] la maxima de que el nivel de prioridad otorgado a una politica, programa o tarea, sea directamente proporcional a su fracaso; en tanto que la "prioridad" es entendida como aberrante control sobre el "todo", el general en su laberinto administrativo ha tomado nota de ello y ha decidido dejar a su suerte las una vez flamantes unidades basicas de produccion cooperativas [ubpc] del maximo en jefe.

hace rato que los altoparlantes propagandistas del regimen no resuenan con aquello que la alimentacion del pueblo es un tema de defensa nacional. hacen bien.

luego el asunto  para que funcione en ese entorno es darle prioridad "cero" [0], que ya la gente sabra por si mismas como arreglarselas para que el que quiera -y pueda- comer calabaza la tenga en su plato en cada ocasion que lo considere.

juventud rebelde es portavoz de las nuevas: 

JR— ¿Qué ocurrirá con las tierras y la fuerza de trabajo de las UBPC que se disuelvan?

—Las tierras pasan al patrimonio estatal, pues están en usufructo. Pueden ser transferidas a otra entidad del Minag, fusionarse con las de otra UBPC, ser entregadas en usufructo a otros productores individuales o cooperativos o ponerse a producir por las propias empresas estatales.

«Pero no se trata solo de las tierras, pues también existen medios disímiles, que serán destinados a fortalecer otras cooperativas o entidades de la agricultura para estimular la productividad.

«La fuerza de trabajo puede optar por solicitar tierras en usufructo, o vincularse a otras formas de producción que existan en el territorio, e incluso integrarse al trabajo por cuenta propia.

JR— Se plantea que la capitalización y el apoyo financiero privilegiarán a las UBPC que mejor respondan productivamente. ¿Quiere ello decir que pueden seguir disolviéndose en el futuro otras?

—También se podrán crear otras; de hecho ya existen solicitudes en este sentido de distintos territorios

«Sí. Pueden seguir disolviéndose aquellas que no sean productivas o eficientes. Esa es una facultad que tendrá el Ministro de la Agricultura, oído el parecer de los sindicatos.»

JR— Entre las medidas se incluye la acotación de que a partir de 2013 el presupuesto del Estado no continuará financiando a las UBPC, excepto aquellas de «interés estatal». ¿Cuáles son las que tienen este tipo de singularidad?

—En ningún caso las cooperativas pueden ser una carga para el Estado. Aquellas de interés estatal son las que involucran planes o programas de desarrollo con financiamiento central del país, pero este como regla nunca será para cubrir ineficiencias.

JR— El nuevo Reglamento General contempla que los controles sobre las UBPC lo ejercerán en lo adelante los órganos, organismos y entidades del Estado con tales facultades. ¿Cuáles serán?

—Las UBPC se vincularán contractualmente con las empresas a las cuales están adscritas; fuera de ello la supervisión de estas será desde el punto de vista de las normas técnicas de los procesos productivos, pero sobre la base del cumplimiento de las obligaciones contractuales.

«Se trata de que velen por el proceso técnico-productivo, para aumentar la eficiencia, para evitar incumplir con los rendimientos establecidos, y que se tomen las adecuadas medidas de sanidad vegetal, control de los suelos, veterinarias…

«Pero se trata ante todo que las UBPC se ratifiquen como una verdadera cooperativa, con la autonomía y autogestión que de ello se deriva».

........................................

Continuar leyendo Aqui >>

Previamente el Granma nos habia dado las primeras coordenadas  Aqui >>   y  Aqui >>

Cuba produce menos alimentos que hace 5 anos a pesar de las reformas

By Marc Frank/

HAVANA, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Cuba is producing less food than it did five years ago despite efforts to increase agriculture production, the government reported on Friday.
Some export crops and farm output aimed at substituting food imports registered minor gains, but overall output last year remained below 2007 levels, according to a report issued by the National Statistics Office ().
The government has also reported that food prices rose 20 percent in 2011.
Cuban President Raul Castro has made increasing food production a priority since he took over as president from his ailing brother, Fidel, in 2008.
The communist country imports up to 70 percent of its food and is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to boost production of rice, beans, coffee and milk and reduce imports.
Domestic production of two Cuban food staples has increased, the government said. Rice production reached 566,400 tonnes compared with 439,600 tonnes in 2007, and farmers produced 133,000 tonnes of beans with 97,200 tonnes in 2007.
To stimulate production, Castro has decentralized decision-making, opened up more space for farmers to sell directly to consumers and raised prices the state pays for produce. He has stopped short of allowing market forces to take hold and drive production.
Marino Murillo, who is leading efforts to steer Cuba's state-dominated economy in a more market-friendly direction, announced in July that a government effort to reduce state bureaucracy in the agriculture sector had recently been completed.
Speaking to the National Assembly, he outlined plans for separating quasi-cooperatives from the state and allowing them to operate like private cooperatives. These operations, formed by state-run companies in the mid-1990s on 30 percent of Cuba's arable land, have performed poorly.
Murillo also said at that time that a land-lease program begun in 2008 involving some 170,000 farmers would be expanded to allow up to five times more land per individual.
Private farmers produce the bulk of the food in Cuba on a fraction of the land. This has led farmers and agricultural experts inside and outside the country to call on the state to pull back further and let market forces drive the sector.

More than half of US suffers heat and epic drought

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Illinois Farm Bureau mission planned to Cuba

Brownfield/ By Julie Harker 

A delegation of Illinois Farm Bureau members and staff is heading to Cuba at the end of this month on a trade mission to increase export opportunities and help promote the resumption of normal trading relations with Cuba.

Jamie Walter, a Dekalb County corn and soybean grower, tells Brownfield that Cuba imports 60 to 80% of its foodstuffs and these days it’s closer to 60-percent.

“The U.S. share of that has been declining,” Walter tells Brownfield, “Our brethren in Brazil have been taking advantage of the political climate and have been increasing their exports and investments in infrastructure into Cuba – and – we’re trying to make sure that we still have some opportunities there before those opportunities slip away.”

Walter says while Brazil is investing heavily in Cuba’s infrastructure, the U.S. will always have the advantage of proximity, “Products that we are able to send down through the Gulf channel or even containerized through the Port of Miami have a much – an easier time logistically of getting there at a much cheaper cost than coming from destinations as far south as Brazil.”

Walter says all segments of Illinois agriculture are being represented on this trip. The delegation will meet with the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture, port authorities in Havana and the U.S. Cuban Interests section, as well as tour farms in Cuba. The trip is from June 28th through July 2nd.

Comiendo curieles en Cuba

micubalibre1

Cuba- Restablecen pago de impuestos a alimentos importados por viajeros

LA HABANA (Reuters) - Cuba anunció el viernes el restablecimiento del pago de impuestos a alimentos importados por viajeros a la isla, tras cuatro años de exenciones que beneficiaron a propietarios de cafeterías y restaurantes que florecieron en medio de las reformas económicas emprendidas por Raúl Castro.

La Aduana General de Cuba en su sitio web (www.aduana.co.cu) dijo en un comunicado que la medida entrará en vigor el 18 de junio, eliminando una decisión del 2008 que fue tomada para paliar los daños y pérdidas dejados ese año por tres huracanes.

El Gobierno cubano ha dicho que no tiene condiciones económicas para la apertura de un mercado mayorista, una vieja demanda de los emprendedores, quienes serían los principales afectados por la medida.

Las autoridades no dieron un estimado de cuánto dinero se recaudaría por el levantamiento de esas exenciones.

La Aduana General de la República dijo que "resulta necesario restablecer y exigir, a partir del 18 de junio del presente año 2012, el pago de los derechos de aduana para la importación de alimentos por la vía de pasajeros".

Emprendedores consultados por Reuters se mostraron desalentados con la regulación.

"Imagínate, ahora se pone más difícil, hasta ahora estábamos resolviendo con lo que traen nuestros familiares de Miami", dijo Miguel Angel, propietario de una cafetería en La Habana, aludiendo a la importación de café, condimentos, granos y otros insumos.

"Esto va quizás a acelerar la apertura de un mercado mayorista en el país", comentó.

Dentro de un plan de más de 300 reformas económicas aprobadas por un congreso del gobernante Partido Comunista en abril del 2011 se dio luz verde a la iniciativa privada en la isla, lo cual llevó a que más de 385.000 cubanos pasaran a hacer actividades privadas.  Mas >>

How Canadians researchers waste taxpayer money: Who hates cilantro? - Study

...The study is a first step in determining how widespread a dislike for cilantro is, at least in a sample of young Canadians. It's unclear whether older Canadians feel similarly or how much the herb is despised by people in other countries.

Eventually, the Toronto scientists hope to pinpoint the genetic basis for why cilantro is an herb some people love to hate.  More >>