ARTEMISA, Cuba, (AFP) – Crop production has plummeted in Cuba as aid for farmers from a government grappling with tough sanctions and the worst economic crisis in decades has dried up.

The country today imports almost all its basic foodstuffs, up from an already high 80 per cent before the coronavirus pandemic, according to official figures.

In Artemisa, an agricultural province, a farmer in his 60s told AFP his land was “splendid” but a lack of fertilizer and seeds made his task impossible.

The farmer, who asked not to be named in a country where the government does not take kindly to criticism, belongs to a cooperative that used to receive all its basic materials from the state.

But now “we have nothing, they don’t give anything,” he said.

“We have bad tractors. We have no resources. There is no fuel. We are not receiving oil or tires. We have to till the land with a team of oxen,” said the farmer.

Artemisa was formerly a breadbasket of the island nation, where most sectors are still under the control of the one-party state.

In the past, each of Artemisa’s municipalities had a center to store crops and market them, but these are now “all but non-existent. There is no way to market or transport the crops,” said the farmer.

According to official figures, Cuban agricultural production fell 35 per cent between 2019 and 2023.

Production of sugar, once the country’s emblematic product, plummeted from 816,000 tons in the 2020-2021 season to 470,000 in 2021-2022, and most of the rice and beans — Cuban staples — are arriving from abroad.

– Importing ‘practically 100 per cent’ –

In September, Economy Minister Alejandro Gil said the government now imports “practically 100 per cent of family food essentials.”

Adding to the structural weaknesses of the Cuban economy is a slow recovery for tourism — the second source of foreign currency earnings before the pandemic — and the tightening of US sanctions since 2021.

The government already distributes much of the food on the island at subsidized prices through a rationing system for Cuba’s 11 million people.

Elsewhere in Artemisa, small-scale farmer Jesus, who did not want to give his full name either, said the yield of malanga, a tuber highly favoured by Cubans, has fallen by half.

This plantation “gives four to six bags per furrow, before it was double. But now the harvest is truly a matter of luck,” said Jesus, standing barefoot in the field he has worked for 40 years.

– ‘There is a risk’ –

World Food Program representative Etienne Labande told AFP the threat of food insecurity is real.

“There is a shortage of locally-produced food and it is well known that importing to Cuba is very complicated” due to the US embargo in force since 1962. “So there is a risk,” he said.

The problems have worsened since a monetary reform in 2021 saw inflation rise to 45.8 per cent between January and May that year and 39 per cent in 2022, according to official figures.

Some analysts say inflation has likely reached triple digits