Hi John, honest question bc sometimes I have a hard time differentiating between what is propaganda and what is true, but do you believe that every claim of difficult living conditions in Cuba are inherently false? Like the food that the govt supplies each household, while an amazing feat in itself, is not enough? Or lack of medical resources and medicine and food in the shops? Idk, like they have achieved so much but these claims are off-putting.
I don’t believe that it’s not difficult to live in Cuba…that much is obvious enough. What I don’t believe is that the difficulties are entirely the fault of the “authoritarianism” or socialism of the Cuban government. It’s also worth noting that even the World Food Programme of the United Nations has on its own website that “over the last 50 years, comprehensive social protection programmes have largely eradicated poverty and hunger.”
One of the problems they face is trying to replace the Soviet Union, who represented “80 percent of Cuba’s international trade…Cuba’s principal supplier of oil, food, machinery, spare parts, chemicals and other vital materials.” Cuba has historically relied on sugar as its main export throughout its history, and the Soviet relationship was especially beneficial during that era bc the Soviet Union was paying a guaranteed above-market price to Cuba for sugar in exchange for the items listed.
One of those items also included pesticides. Since Cuba relies on imports for food, and it had just lost its primary importer, it didn’t have the money to purchase pesticides that were usually used on its sugar crops. So it was forced to develop organic farming techniques such as “integrated pest management, crop rotation, composting…soil conservation…worm composting and biopesticides.” Those innovations, along with a de-emphasis on sugar to an emphasis on tourism to bring in much needed revenue, are what kept Cubans from completely starving.
Thankfully, the Venezuelan government after the Bolivarian Revolution of 1999 helped to replace the Soviet Union by once again offering subsidized oil in exchange for Cuban technical workers (primarily doctors but also coaches & teachers). However, the Venezuelan economic crisis once again put a strain on the Cuban economy as Venezuela was forced to export less oil and engage in less trade.
This is a problem when it comes to food bc Cuba imports between 60-80% of its food, and for that you need money obviously. But as one response “to this dependency, officials are promoting small, local farms as one way – perhaps the only way – for the country to finally start feeding itself. Although it has happened gradually, the shift to smaller, often organic farming marks a radical change from the monocrop sugarcane economy that ruled Cuba for a century. Small-scale farming is receiving the blessing of once-skeptical agricultural officials who set food priorities.”
Interestingly, tourism, while overall good for the economy, also puts a strain on the food supply. “Tourists imposed a tremendous increase in food and food quality demand for an island with a population of only 11 million inhabitants and a poor agricultural structure. That additional demand drove up the cost of food, making it less available to the estimated 80 percent of the population who do not have access to private jobs or remittances from abroad.”
Another solution would be to lift the U.S. embargo. Currently, “although the US embargo theoretically allows sales of food and medicine to the island, it also includes restrictions on credit and shipping that make such trade prohibitively complicated and expensive.” Meaning that it would be so much easier and cheaper to import food & medicine/medical supplies from the U.S. if it was allowed to buy it on credit instead of being forced to pay for imports in cash (that it does not have a lot of). Other countries like Brazil, Vietnam, & China allow Cuba to buy on credit, but the transportation costs are so high (bc they’re far away) that it’s kind of ridiculous that it has to do that when the U.S. is literally right there. Not to mention that U.S. businesses that don’t sell food or medicine are restricted from investing in Cuba, which is kind of a double-edged sword, but repealing the embargo would still bring in much-needed cash.
This is a very amateur attempt at answering this question and there is a lot that could be written about this, but I tried my best and I hope it provides some context regarding some of the problems.
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