Cuba handed over 308 hectares of land in the western province of Pinar del Río to a Vietnamese company for rice production for the next three years, the official Granma newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The measure is unprecedented in Cuba. “It is the first time that a process of handing over land to a foreign company has been carried out to take charge of its exploitation,” acknowledged Granma, which did not specify whether said operation would take place through lease or usufruct.
Agricultural production was seriously affected in the last five years with a decrease in many of the food and vegetable areas, as well as in animal production, as recognized on several occasions by the Cuban government.
The result of the economic crisis that the island is experiencing It has been reflected on several occasions in shortages, fuel shortages and blackouts that have affected the population.
According to figures provided by the National Statistics Office, Cuba went from producing 272,000 tons of rice in 2018 to 27,000 in 2023. Annual national demand is usually around 700,000 tons.
Peasants often complain that the State imposes limitations on them, does not pay them for contracted crops on time, and makes it difficult for them to obtain fertilizers or pesticides.
At the end of the 2000s, Cuba began a timid opening to private initiative within the framework of its strongly centralized model with a program of delivering land in usufruct to farmers, but it was always to private Cuban citizens.
Engineer Jorge Félix Chamizo, director of the Los Palacios Agroindustrial Grain Company, in Pinar del Río, told Granma that the Vietnamese company expressed the “intention to grow to 5,000 hectares.”
The name of the company from the Asian country with which the agreement was signed is unknown and the official indicated that there are already 16 hectares planted on a pilot basis.
Rice is part of the basic diet of Cubans since it is consumed every day, just as in other countries it is done with bread.
According to Chamizo, among the new features will be that the Vietnamese company will be able to directly hire the Cuban workforce, when according to the island’s regulations, national personnel must inevitably be employed by the State, which in turn transfers them to its counterpart.
The Vietnamese will also be able to bring their own specialists and will provide fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, among others, as well as their seed varieties. The island counterpart will provide machinery services.
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