Hard Times for Cuban Sugar Cane Harvest

Hard Times for Cuban Sugar Cane Harvest / 14ymedio, Orlando Palma
Posted on December 28, 2015

14ymedio, Orlando Palma, 28 December 2015 – Guarapo, sugarcane juice,
may be harder to get in 2016, thanks to the climate, obsolete technology
and missed payments to producers, all of which are affecting the current
sugar harvest, according to information presented to the National
Assembly on Sunday by the directors of the AzCuba Group.

Delayed payments from the last harvest to private, leasee and
cooperative producers total more than 95 million pesos and are
of particular concern in the provinces of Holguin, Mayabeque, Matanzas,
Camagüey and Granma.

According to AzCuba president Orlando Celso Garcia, the drought in July
and August and the excessive rain in the months of November and December
also will negatively affect the sugar harvest.

The delay in starting by a group of centers in the so-called "little
harvest" is another negative factor, and is due to the immaturity of the
cane and infrastructure problems in the sugar mills.

According to AzCuba's official figures, the technological and input
needs of the sector required 173 million pesos in imports, but only 98
million pesos worth was approved.

Data from the last harvest were handled very discreetly in the official
press, and no figure was given for the number of tons produced. A
summary of the report prepared by AzCuba and published in the newspaper
Granma limited itself to saying that although "the plan fell 4% short of
what was expected," production "grew 18% over the previous harvest."

Cuban sugar production reached 8.5 million metric tons in 1970 and fell
to 1.1 million metric tons in the 2009-2010 harvest, a figure that had
already been reached on the island in the early years of the twentieth
century.

Source: Hard Times for Cuban Sugar Cane Harvest / 14ymedio, Orlando
Palma | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/hard-times-for-cuban-sugar-cane-harvest-14ymedio-orlando-palma/