HAVANA — A full-page article in the Communist Party newspaper Granma on Wednesday warned that Cuban authorities will no longer fill the nation’s coffee shortfall with imports.
Cuba said it had its worst coffee harvest in history last year, with production plummeting to just 5,500 tons nationwide. As recently as the harvest of 1961-62, Cuba produced 60,000 tons.
The government said it cannot afford to spend a projected $40 million this year and $47 million next year just to keep islanders in high-octane caffeine.
Cuba was the world’s top coffee exporter in the 1940s,Granma reported, producing a bean “that was very coveted in discerning markets.”
The newspaper cited inefficiency and negligence as reasons for the drop in production, but it did not go into detail.
Orlando Guevara, a coffee specialist at the Agricultural Ministry, told Granma that Cuba hopes to produce at least 6,700 tons of coffee in the coming harvest that begins in October and lasts about two months. He said Cuba hopes to one day get back to the 1970s’ level of 28,000 to 30,000 tons a year.
As part of an effort to improve coffee production, Cuba recently abandoned the long-held practice of using teams of ill-trained student volunteers to harvest coffee, most of which is grown in the island’s east.
Strong, almost tarlike espresso is most commonly served on the island in thimble-sized shots cut with copious portions of sugar. Cafe con leche is strong espresso combined with a large glass of steamed milk. Though it is famous in Cuba, it is more commonly consumed by Cubans living in the United States or elsewhere.
But cafe con leche’s days could be numbered on the island itself. Bad news about coffee production follows a report in May that Cuba recorded its worst sugar harvest in more than a century, an assessment that followed the firing of the head of an industry that was once a symbol of the nation.
No official figures were given, but officials acknowledged that there had not been “such a poor sugar campaign” since 1905, when the Cuban census reported 1.23 million tons of sugar harvested in the 1905-06 season.
Communist officials have also for years attempted to jump-start the country’s foundering milk production, with only spotty results.
All of that could mean a lot less cafe con leche.
President Raul Castro has used every major address since taking over power from his older brother Fidel in July 2006 to stress the need to revive Cuba’s farming sector and cut back on costly imports.
Business, Pages 28 on 09/30/2010