Cuba: Things I learned in 9 days (December 1-10, 2023) there, things I should have known before I went.

Me at Revolutionary Square.

Cuba imports about 70-80% of the food its people eat. To say the least, this is not sustainable. What are the Cubans doing about the problem? Well, we saw small farms, really mostly in peoples’ yards. This is called Permaculture, but it seems to be herbs, some fruit, and beans. That’s not enough to feed a nation.

–“MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Cuba imports roughly 80 percent of the food it needs for the island’s 11 million people. JANUARY 25, 2022

A healthy portion of that food comes from the United States.

But wait a minute, you say, what happened to the Cuban embargo?

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

A Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University and a Cuba expert, Eire is also the author of “Waiting for Snow in Havana” and “Learning to Die in Miami.”

“They pay upfront, they get the shipment, and it goes through the military,” he added.

In Cuba, the military controls through various shell companies which handle food distribution on the island.

In the year 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the Trade Sanctions Reform Act that allowed agricultural and food products to be exported to Cuba despite the embargo. The hope was that improving conditions for individual Cubans would undermine the support for the Castro Regime.

That was then. The regime is still in charge years later and the food products continue to flow to the island, most winding up in state-operated stores. It is expensive for most Cubans.”

Flights to Cuba from the U.S.: American, Jet Blue, United, Southwest and Delta. American has the highest frequency of flights. You can go from Charlotte, Tampa, Houston, and especially Miami. You are supposed to travel with an authorized organization; I went with Witness for Peace.

Cubans with any means have smart phones with access to the Internet.

There is no Iron Curtain around Cuba, to say the least. The discos were full and wild, art was striking, and people seemed far from crushed.

At the Factory of Art.

Cuban baseball players used to have to defect to the U.S., which made it impossible for them to return. Not so any more; they can and do return for visits, and they donate money to various causes on the island.

At one of Havana’s major markets.

Inflation is huge, maybe 140% a year when I was there. 

The old American cars, pre-1959 and the Revolution, are still moving, but more vehicles are Ladas, Peugeots, etc. A few of the old cars are in beautiful shape, at least on the outside.

I have never been in a country where people hugged so much.

Cuba is green–I mean the color green is everywhere in the fields, in contrast to Mexico, where I saw really parched land last January.

So: the U.S. blockade/embargo is stupid, a relic of the Cold War and of the highly conservative Cuban-American vote in Florida. But I do wonder what will happen to the island if the embargo is lifted. I can imagine a company like Bayer (which owns Monsanto) offering a lot of money to lease land for experimental crops, e.g., or a better Internet provider moving in. 

The Cubans my group met were all about coops and organic farming, by necessity; they acknowledged that they can’t afford to buy commercial, synthetic fertilizer and pesticides. People talked a good deal about reviving the spirit of the Revolution (now more than 64 years old!), anti-consumerism, and social equality. Good luck with that in the long run.

But I did see vibrant art, lots of people working hard, smiles and optimism. Carry on, Cuba!