US energy blockade leaves Cuban farmers struggling to feed a nation

Farmworkers travel in an ox-drawn cart in Minas, Havana province [AP Photo]

Eduardo Obiols Sobredo struggles to feed Cubans young and old, a task even harder now because of a U.S. energy blockade that has caused sweeping water and power outages along with severe gas shortages.

“I feel like crying,” the 58-year-old farmer said. “It’s so sad to see crops grown with so much effort go to waste, especially when you know there are so many who need them.”

Farming equipment is falling silent across Cuba, with no fuel to power it. Farmers like Obiols Sobredo are turning to animal and manual labor, but not everyone can afford it, and resources are limited.

As a result, poverty is deepening and hunger is increasing across Cuba, a country of nearly 10 million people. The quality and quantity of fruit and vegetables is diminishing, and prices are surging even further beyond the means of many across the island nation.

While the Iran war pinches energy supplies around the world, Cuba is the rare place blaming the Trump administration’s targeted actions instead.

Crisis affects the most vulnerable

Cuba spent three months without a fuel shipment after the U.S. attacked Venezuela, a key supplier, and threatened tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba.

The island was already suffocating under a sharp increase in longtime U.S. sanctions, which prevent it from importing certain goods. The Trump administration demands that Cuba’s socialist government release political prisoners, implement major economic reforms and change its way of governance to avoid becoming a national security threat. Cuba has repeatedly said it poses no threat to the U.S.

As tensions remain high, top-ranking officials are visiting farmers across Cuba, urging them to step up production so the country can be even more self-sufficient.

But the effects of the U.S. energy blockade are stark in the town of Las Minas, which has 65 farmers and only 18 oxen.

Obiols Sobredo rents the animals and their handlers when they’re available, but he relies on manual labor for smaller jobs on his farm. He grows tomatoes, sorghum, cassava and other crops. He also raises goats, whose milk is served at schools.

He and others farmers are part of a network that supports Cuba’s most vulnerable, including people in orphanages and nursing homes.

Clearing his land once took 15 minutes with farm equipment. It now takes at least three days. January was the last time he received the usual monthly supply of gasoline from the government.

“It has forced us to take other kinds of actions in order to survive,” Obiols Sobredo said.

The lack of petroleum also means the delivery truck doesn’t always arrive, forcing farmers to use what little gas they have to transport milk to a location where they freeze it, in the hope it won’t spoil before being picked up.

Power outages also prevent Obiols Sobredo from grinding food for his goats, which produce less milk because of insufficient nutrition.

He also can’t water his crops enough. A nonprofit last year financed a solar irrigation system for his farm, but he needs gasoline to set it up. He relies on rain that hasn’t fallen in nearly two months.

‘They know things are bad’

Suppliers are relying more often on horse-drawn carts to transport produce, which becomes bruised during long trips to markets.

At a state market in Havana, where prices are relatively lower, 68-year-old shopper Juan Lázaro lamented the state of some fruits and vegetables.

“Look,” he said, pointing to a pile of small, greenish tomatoes. “They’re lacking fertilizer, you can tell they’re lacking water. Look at their color.”

Lázaro is a retired industrial mechanic but was forced to start working at a small convenience store to make ends meet. On a recent afternoon, he bought six potatoes as a rare treat.

“I’ve had to cut back. I either buy bread or I buy potatoes,” he said.

He added that Cuba’s current crises are much worse than the so-called “Special Period” in the 1990s, when cuts in aid following the dismantling of the Soviet Union sparked deprivation. “We’ve been hitting rock bottom for a while.”

Another shopper, 64-year-old Griselle Guillot, now wavers about buying rice.

“I need to see how much I can buy, because I also need onions,” she said.

Anthony Batista Guerra, a 47-year-old produce vendor, said there’s no need to explain the change in quality and supply to customers: “They know things are bad right now.”

As the state market began to close, one vendor threw a tomato into the gutter. Shoppers had found it unfit to buy.

‘My goal is to survive’

On a humid morning, 82-year-old Argelio González Juvier used a hoe to fight weeds around cassava plants on the farm where he works.

An official with Cuba’s interior ministry who retired in 1995, he now has been forced to work again to boost his income and chose farming.

“The earth provides everything. That’s what we should focus on,” he said. “We have no other alternative.”

He criticized the U.S. energy blockade, calling it a crime.

“Cuba doesn’t deserve what they’re doing to us,” he said. “The Americans think they’re the owners of the world.” DÁNICA COTO, LAS MINAS, MDT/AP