The Cuban sugar economy: Collapse, reform and prospects for recovery

Journal of Latin American Studies

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 171-210

  Pollitt, Brian H ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRICULTURAL PRACTICE; AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY; COMECON; DEVELOPING COUNTRY; ECONOMIC COLLAPSE; ECONOMIC CRISIS; FUTURE PROSPECT; IMPORT RESTRICTIONS; NATIONAL ECONOMY; SOVIET COLLAPSE; SOVIET DISINTEGRATION; SUGAR INDUSTRY; SUGAR PRODUCTION;

CUBA;

EID: 0030771702     PISSN: 0022216X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X96004671     Document Type: Article

References (100)

1. Cuban sugar and total exports, 1925-34, from Anuario Azucarero de Cuba (A.A.C.) (Havana, 1951), pp. 104, 107; sugar production from M. Moreno Fraginals, El Ingenio, vol. III, Table III, pp. 47-9 (Havana, 1978).
2. Cuban sugar and total exports, 1925-34, from Anuario Azucarero de Cuba (A.A.C.) (Havana, 1951), pp. 104, 107; sugar production from M. Moreno Fraginals, El Ingenio, vol. III, Table III, pp. 47-9 (Havana, 1978).
3. Data for 1985-9 from Anuario Estadístico de Cuba (A.E.C.) (Havana, 1989), Table XI.1, p. 246. Figures for 1991-5 from Banco Nacional de Cuba (B.N.C.), Economic Report 1994 (Havana, August 1995), p. 11.
4. Data for 1985-9 from Anuario Estadístico de Cuba (A.E.C.) (Havana, 1989), Table XI.1, p. 246. Figures for 1991-5 from Banco Nacional de Cuba (B.N.C.), Economic Report 1994 (Havana, August 1995), p. 11.
5. A.E.C. (1989), Table XI.5, p. 260; Banco Nacional de Cuba, Economic Report 1994, p. 12.
6. A.E.C. (1989), Table XI.5, p. 260; Banco Nacional de Cuba, Economic Report 1994, p. 12.
7. A.E.C. (1989), Table VI.3, p. 148; Banco Nacional de Cuba, Economic Report 1994, p. 8.
8. A.E.C. (1989), Table VI.3, p. 148; Banco Nacional de Cuba, Economic Report 1994, p. 8.
9. R. Guerra y Sánchez, L.a Industria Azucarera de Cuba (Havana, 1940), Table XXVIII, P. 243.
10. See B. H. Pollitt, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy and the Great Depression', Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 3, no. 2 (1984), pp. 3-28.
11. From the mid-19705, the Cuban State Committee of Statistics (CEE) published the Anuario Estadístico de Cuba (AEC). In the course of time, this provided, within the definitions then employed in Soviet-style economies, most data necessary to assess Cuba's social and economic performance. Sections on the sugar economy offered an insight into various technical aspects, and its significance in Cuban exports, and to a less clear extent in imports, was shown in the sections on foreign trade. However, after 1989 the CEE was prohibited from publishing the basic economic data previously made available in the AEC. Ministries contributing such data to the CEE were similarly gagged. Consequently, it is at present impossible to document Cuba's economic performance by means of various statistical indicators available up to 1989.
12. For a while, the Dirección de Planificación of MINAZ compiled an Anuario Estadístico del Ministerio del Azúcar (A.E.M.A.), as the ministry's basic internal statistical handbook. It was short-lived, and its final 363-page edition for 1990 was published in June 1991. Several information bulletins circulated by MINAZ closed down after 1991 because of paper shortages and, for the same reason, none of the six main technical publications on the sugar industry that formally survive, including La Industria Azucarera and Cuba Azúcar, has appeared since April 1992. Technical data previously made available to and published by this writer were withheld by MINAZ in 1994, though said to be not officially regarded as classified.
13. For a while, the Dirección de Planificación of MINAZ compiled an Anuario Estadístico del Ministerio del Azúcar (A.E.M.A.), as the ministry's basic internal statistical handbook. It was short-lived, and its final 363-page edition for 1990 was published in June 1991. Several information bulletins circulated by MINAZ closed down after 1991 because of paper shortages and, for the same reason, none of the six main technical publications on the sugar industry that formally survive, including La Industria Azucarera and Cuba Azúcar, has appeared since April 1992. Technical data previously made available to and published by this writer were withheld by MINAZ in 1994, though said to be not officially regarded as classified.
14. The 1950s figure is my estimate. For the 1980s, see AEC (1989), VIII.8, p. 187.
15. Fertiliser application to cane reportedly rose from 24,700 short tons in 1954 to 122,000 tons in 1956. See A.A.C. (1957), p. 135- M. A. Figueras estimates annual applications of 150-200 thousand tonnes over 1955-9. See M. Figueras, Aspectos Estructurales de la Economía Cubana, Ciencias Sociales (Havana, 1994), p. 83.
16. For the cane area fertilised, see 'Principales Atenciones Culturales Realizadas a la Caña de Azúcar en Año Calendario', AEC, various years. For fertiliser imports, see 'Importaciones de Productos Seleccionados', ibid. For tonnage applied to cane, see F. Castro, Granma, 28 Dec. 1993.
17. For the cane area fertilised, see 'Principales Atenciones Culturales Realizadas a la Caña de Azúcar en Año Calendario', AEC, various years. For fertiliser imports, see 'Importaciones de Productos Seleccionados', ibid. For tonnage applied to cane, see F. Castro, Granma, 28 Dec. 1993.
18. For the cane area fertilised, see 'Principales Atenciones Culturales Realizadas a la Caña de Azúcar en Año Calendario', AEC, various years. For fertiliser imports, see 'Importaciones de Productos Seleccionados', ibid. For tonnage applied to cane, see F. Castro, Granma, 28 Dec. 1993.
19. Pedro Pablo Acosta, 'La Industria Azucarera en Cuba en los Ultimos 40 Años', MINAZ (May 1993), p. 4 and Table 7.
20. For a more detailed examination of the development of mechanised cane harvesting in post-revolutionary Cuba, see B. H. Pollitt and G. B. Hagelberg, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy in the Soviet Era and After', Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 18 (1994), pp. 547-69.
21. Burning destroys organic matter that serves as mulch, preventing erosion, conserving soil humidity and suppressing weeds. Without irrigation and increased application of herbicides and fertiliser, trash destruction could depress subsequent ratoon yields.
22. Acosta, 'La industria azucarera', pp. 3-4 and Table 6.
23. No more than 10-15 Per cent ot tne cane supply in the 1950s was so-called administration cane, i.e. produced on lands owned and managed by the sugar factory. In this respect Cuba's sugar industry did not then conform to the classical millplantation model.
24. Pedro Pablo Acosta, 'La industria azucarera', Table 7. Comparisons between the 1980s and 1952 are illuminating, but it has to be noted that a series of harvests is being compared with a single exceptional one. The 1952 harvest was the largest before the Revolution and could not have been immediately repeated. With no production restrictions and excellent weather conditions, virtually the entire area under cane was harvested. Lack of cane held over from 1952 depressed the level of the potential harvest for 1953. In the event, this was cut back further in the face of a collapse in sugar prices.
25. The deterioration of post-revolutionary cane sugar ratios is analysed in M. A. Figueras, 'Aspectos estructurales' and in A. E. Morales P., 'Desarrollo de la Agroindustria Cañero-Azucarera en el Periodo 1959-1991', mimeo. (Havana, May 1991).
26. The deterioration of post-revolutionary cane sugar ratios is analysed in M. A. Figueras, 'Aspectos estructurales' and in A. E. Morales P., 'Desarrollo de la Agroindustria Cañero-Azucarera en el Periodo 1959-1991', mimeo. (Havana, May 1991).
27. Several new sugar factories were built in Cuba in the 1980s to a standardised design. According to Granma Weekly Review (G.W.R.), 10 March 1985, 77 per cent of the value of their milling equipment was produced in Cuba, with a further 15 per cent imported from COMECON countries and 8 per cent from capitalist economies.
28. From 1977, chopper harvesters were made or assembled in a Cuban factory which eventually produced over 600 machines a year. By 1981, 2,200 of the 2,500 components were reportedly manufactured in Cuba. See B. H. Pollitt, 'Sugar, "Dependency" and the Cuban Revolution', Development and Change, vol. 17, no. 2 (April 1986), p. 209.
29. This strategy was more rigorously enforced as hard-currency debt repayment difficulties mounted in the early 1980s.
30. For example, a number of Toft 6000 chopper harvesters, demonstrably superior to the KTP-2 machine of Cuban-Soviet design produced or assembled in Cuba, were imported from Australia in the 1980s. Production costs of the KTP-2 are unavailable, but it was sold in Cuba for between 50,000 and 55,000 pesos. The Toft 6000, on the other hand, reportedly cost US$180,000. This already impressive price discrepancy has to be further multiplied by a factor of about three because the import content of the KTP-2 was paid for by sugar sales to the USSR, whereas purchases of the Toft 6000 were ultimately financed by transactions on the far less profitable world sugar market.
31. See B. H. Pollitt and G. B. Hagelberg, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy in the Soviet Era', p. 565.
32. AEC (1989), P. 24.
33. Ibid., p. 30.
34. See C. D. Deere, 'Socialism on One Island? Cuba's national Food Program and its Prospects for Self-Sufficiency', Agriculture and Human Values (Summer 1993).
35. This fieldwork was carried out in areas first studied in 1988, selected at that time to illustrate developments in cane harvest mechanisation and the Agricultural Production Cooperatives (CPAs) formed from private sector cane farms. The areas were not typical of national cane agriculture, having above-average levels of mechanisation, irrigation and cane yields. In the event, these features made them more useful for an attempt, in 1994, to assess the effects of the post-1989 collapse of Cuba's international trade.
36. The UBPCs 'Pedroso' and 'Socorro' emerged from the same block of state lands; hence the reported yields are identical.
37. C. D. Deere, M. Perez and E. Gonzales, 'The View from Below: Cuban Agriculture in the "Special Period in Peacetime",' Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 21, no. 2 (1994), p. 216, publish cane yields of two sugar complexes (CAIs) in Havana province which show similar trends.
38. C. D. Deere, ' Cuba's national Food Program', p. 40.
39. F. Castro, Granma, 21 Dec. 1993.
40. F. Castro, Granma, 10 Oct. 1992.
41. F. Castro, Granma, 28 Dec. 1993, and Granma International, 19 July 1995.
42. F. Castro, Granma, 28 Dec. 1993, and Granma International, 19 July 1995.
43. See, for example, F. Castro and N. Torres, Granma, 28 Dec. 1993.
44. Granma, 28 Dec. 1993.
45. F. Castro, Granma, 28 Dec. 1993.
46. Ibid.
47. J. Varela Pérez, Granma, 16 April 1994.
48. A.E.M.A. (1990), p. 156.
49. Pollitt and Hagelberg, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy in the Cuban Era', p. 567.
50. In Havana Province, for example, four of 16 factories remained closed during the 1993/4 harvest (Granma, 11 May 1994). A larger group of factories in Matanzas Province were shut down for the same harvest.
51. Pollitt and Hagelberg, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy in the Cuban Era', pp. 555-7.
52. See C. Deere, N. Pérez and E. Gonzales, ' the View from Below: Cuban Agriculture in the "Special Period in Peacetime"', Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 21, no. 2 (1995).
53. For the 1994 shares of arable land held by different categories of cooperative and private farms, see Granma International (G.I.), 17 January 1996. Not considered here are small plots, privately owned or leased from the state. These were significant in number in the 1960s, may have declined somewhat thereafter, but grew vigorously in the 1990s with official encouragement to relieve the scarcities. While important in number and in subsistence food production, their share of national farm land was tiny. B. H. Pollitt, 'Agrarian Reform and the "Agricultural Proletariat" in Cuba, 1958-66: Some Notes', Occasional Paper No. 27, University of Glasgow (1979); B. Pollitt, 'Agrarian Reform and the "Agricultural Proletariat" in Cuba, 1958-66: Further Notes and Some Second Thoughts', Occasional Paper No. 30, University of Glasgow (1980).
54. For the 1994 shares of arable land held by different categories of cooperative and private farms, see Granma International (G.I.), 17 January 1996. Not considered here are small plots, privately owned or leased from the state. These were significant in number in the 1960s, may have declined somewhat thereafter, but grew vigorously in the 1990s with official encouragement to relieve the scarcities. While important in number and in subsistence food production, their share of national farm land was tiny. B. H. Pollitt, 'Agrarian Reform and the "Agricultural Proletariat" in Cuba, 1958-66: Some Notes', Occasional Paper No. 27, University of Glasgow (1979); B. Pollitt, 'Agrarian Reform and the "Agricultural Proletariat" in Cuba, 1958-66: Further Notes and Some Second Thoughts', Occasional Paper No. 30, University of Glasgow (1980).
55. For the 1994 shares of arable land held by different categories of cooperative and private farms, see Granma International (G.I.), 17 January 1996. Not considered here are small plots, privately owned or leased from the state. These were significant in number in the 1960s, may have declined somewhat thereafter, but grew vigorously in the 1990s with official encouragement to relieve the scarcities. While important in number and in subsistence food production, their share of national farm land was tiny. B. H. Pollitt, 'Agrarian Reform and the "Agricultural Proletariat" in Cuba, 1958-66: Some Notes', Occasional Paper No. 27, University of Glasgow (1979); B. Pollitt, 'Agrarian Reform and the "Agricultural Proletariat" in Cuba, 1958-66: Further Notes and Some Second Thoughts', Occasional Paper No. 30, University of Glasgow (1980).
56. A. del Monte, 'La integracion agroindustrial azucarera, ATAC, no. 2 (Mar-April 1980), pp. 12-26.
57. For detailed discussion of the nature and conflicts of the national and ' foreign ' sugar economy in Cuba from the 19205, see e.g. R. Guerra y Sánchez, La Industria Azucarera de Cuba (Havana, 1941); J. Martínez Alier, Cuba: Economía y Sociedad (Paris, 1972); R. Guerra y Sánchez, Sugar and Society in the Caribbean (New Haven, 1964); B. H. Pollitt, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy and the Great Depression'.
58. For detailed discussion of the nature and conflicts of the national and ' foreign ' sugar economy in Cuba from the 19205, see e.g. R. Guerra y Sánchez, La Industria Azucarera de Cuba (Havana, 1941); J. Martínez Alier, Cuba: Economía y Sociedad (Paris, 1972); R. Guerra y Sánchez, Sugar and Society in the Caribbean (New Haven, 1964); B. H. Pollitt, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy and the Great Depression'.
59. For detailed discussion of the nature and conflicts of the national and ' foreign ' sugar economy in Cuba from the 19205, see e.g. R. Guerra y Sánchez, La Industria Azucarera de Cuba (Havana, 1941); J. Martínez Alier, Cuba: Economía y Sociedad (Paris, 1972); R. Guerra y Sánchez, Sugar and Society in the Caribbean (New Haven, 1964); B. H. Pollitt, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy and the Great Depression'.
60. For detailed discussion of the nature and conflicts of the national and ' foreign ' sugar economy in Cuba from the 19205, see e.g. R. Guerra y Sánchez, La Industria Azucarera de Cuba (Havana, 1941); J. Martínez Alier, Cuba: Economía y Sociedad (Paris, 1972); R. Guerra y Sánchez, Sugar and Society in the Caribbean (New Haven, 1964); B. H. Pollitt, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy and the Great Depression'.
61. Guerra y Sánchez (cited in fn. 51), and Historia de la Nación Cubana, vol. IX, ch. III and VII, Havana 1952. The Sugar Coordination Law of 1937 regulated the rights and obligations of colonos in great detail. Colonos who failed to produce staple foodstuffs could be prosecuted and fined. It is doubtful whether this provision was enforced to any extent, but its enactment reflects the economic rationale that underpinned the colono system.
62. Colonos were classified as large, medium and small, according to the cane quotas assigned them by the sugar factories. Data as to their relative numbers and shares of the crop in the 1950s are not precise. In the peak harvest of 1952, their total number reportedly exceeded 60,000. Cane production was heavily concentrated in the hands of the larger growers: small colonos made up almost two-thirds of the total number of growers in the mid 1950s, but apparently produced less than 10 per cent of the total cane ground (see Pollitt, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy and the Great Depression', p. 28).
63. Censos de Población, V 'ivienda y Electoral (Havana, 1953).
64. B. H. Pollitt, 'Employment Plans, Performance and Future Prospects in Cuba', in R. Jolly et al (eds.), Third World Employment (London, 1973).
65. See B. H. Pollitt, 'Employment Plans';
66. B. H. Pollitt, 'Some Problems in Enumerating the "Peasantry" in pre-Revolutionary Cuba', Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 4, no. 2 (1977), PP. 162-80. In addition, organisational changes produced arbitrary redefinitions - of agricultural and non-agricultural employment. For example, according to the statistical yearbooks, the number of agricultural workers declined markedly between 1981 and 1984 while the number of industrial workers rose correspondingly
67. (see, e.g. A.E.C. (1988), p. 192). The main reason, however, was not an exodus of workers out of agriculture and into industry but the incorporation of state cane farms into CAIs which classified all their workers as 'industrial'.
68. An extreme case is the CPA 'Antonino Rojas' located in Havana province where the need to improve food supplies to the capital caused significant diversions of land from cane to food production. In this CPA, one third of a total cane area of some 400 hectares was diverted to food crops between 1991 and 1994. To obtain the additional labour required by the change in land use as well as more labour-intensive cultivation of the reduced cane area, the cooperative had to increase its membership from 70 to 120.
69. R. Pages, Granma, 17 Nov. 1993.
70. Ecological enthusiasts may be tempted to make a virtue out of necessity when commenting on the enforced 'greening' of Cuban agriculture, arguing that it 'might be the best model to follow for worldwide agricultural sustainability' (see 'Global Exchange' publications distributed from the College of Natural Resources, University of California, Berkeley). Not discussed are the accompanying reductions in output and labour productivity.
71. N. Torres, Granma, 28 Dec. 1993.
72. Sowings lagged behind plans as early as October 1993 (J. Varela Pérez, Granma, 20 October 1993). Shortly after, President Castro defined production targets as 'between 7 and 8 million tonnes' of sugar at a near, but unspecified, date (F. Castro, Granma, 28 December 1993), i.e. a return to 1980s production levels.
73. Sowings lagged behind plans as early as October 1993 (J. Varela Pérez, Granma, 20 October 1993). Shortly after, President Castro defined production targets as 'between 7 and 8 million tonnes' of sugar at a near, but unspecified, date (F. Castro, Granma, 28 December 1993), i.e. a return to 1980s production levels.
74. 'Elimination' of the massive state subsidy to the sugar industry was part of the recovery programme announced by Torres (Granma, 28 December 1993). This was immediately qualified by Castro who stressed that the programme's prime objective was not to eliminate the subsidies, but to produce more sugar to meet Cuba's basic international financial needs (F. Castro, ibid).
75. 'Elimination' of the massive state subsidy to the sugar industry was part of the recovery programme announced by Torres (Granma, 28 December 1993). This was immediately qualified by Castro who stressed that the programme's prime objective was not to eliminate the subsidies, but to produce more sugar to meet Cuba's basic international financial needs (F. Castro, ibid).
76. Pollitt and Hagelberg, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy in the Soviet Era'.
77. See, e.g. G. Carriazo 'Cambios estructurales en la agricultura cubana: la cooperativizacion', Economía Cubana: Boletín Informativo, no. 18 (Nov. 1994), p. 19.
78. This warping of the magnitude and precision of statistics in their transmission from one level of authority to another was not an isolated phenomenon, but a microcosm of a wider reality in which primary data could be moulded to match more ambitious, higher-level statistical expectations. The inevitable outcome of the process was the erosion of the realism of national plans.
79. Carriazo, 'Cambios estructurales', and G. Carriazo, 'El proceso de transformación económica en Cuba y las pequeñas y medianas empresas. El ejemplo de las UBPC', Economía Cubana: Boletin Informativo, no. 23 (Sept.-Oct. 1995), PP. 17-19.
80. Carriazo, 'Cambios estructurales', and G. Carriazo, 'El proceso de transformación económica en Cuba y las pequeñas y medianas empresas. El ejemplo de las UBPC', Economía Cubana: Boletin Informativo, no. 23 (Sept.-Oct. 1995), PP. 17-19.
81. Interview with M. Vázquez Raña, published in Granma International, 21 Feb. 1995.
82. E.g., E. Meléndez, Granma International, 7 June 1995.
83. See report of Castro in Granma International, 18 Oct. 1995.
84. See interview with Eduardo Chao Trujillo in Granma International, 17 Jan. 1996.
85. Pollitt and Hagelberg, 'The Cuban Sugar Economy in the Soviet Era', p. 568.
86. See, for example, the Banco Nacional's Economic Report (1994) and Inversions y Negocios, 1995-1996 (Havana, 1995).
87. F. Castro at the National Assembly of People's Power, 26 Dec. 1995, in Granma International, 10 Jan. 1996.
88. Granma International, 6 Sept. 1995.
89. Ibid., 9 Aug. 1995.
90. Ibid., 28 June, 25 Oct. and 31 May 1995, respectively.
91. Cuba Business, vol. 10 (Dec. 1995).
92. P. Fletcher, Financial Times, 8 Dec. 1995; Cuba Business, vol. 10 (Dec. 1995); Granma International, 26 April and 8 Nov. 1995.
93. P. Fletcher, Financial Times, 8 Dec. 1995; Cuba Business, vol. 10 (Dec. 1995); Granma International, 26 April and 8 Nov. 1995.
94. P. Fletcher, Financial Times, 8 Dec. 1995; Cuba Business, vol. 10 (Dec. 1995); Granma International, 26 April and 8 Nov. 1995.
95. Ibid., 3 Jan. 1996.
96. In a recent interview, Carlos Lage reported that the Helms-Burton Law of March 1996 would 'complicate the prospects for economic recovery by slowing the pace of new foreign investment and increasing the...cost... of external financing' (Financial Times, 18 July 1996). Even if applied in full, however, he asserted that the Law would not destroy Cuba's capacity for economic recovery. Evidence of the latter was cited in the form of a 1995/6 sugar harvest improved to 4.4 million tonnes, increased tourist arrivals, and a sharp increase in nickel production. Projected GDP growth for 1996 was 5 per cent.
97. J. Herrara, Granma International, 10 May 1995.
98. Granma International, 21 Nov. 1995.
99. Ibid., 10 Jan. 1996.
100. See Cuba Business, vol. 10 (Dec. 1995), p. 3.