Believing in the regime's propaganda "Cultivate Your Piece of Land" turned out to be costly. An elderly Cuban man has been fined for cultivating corn on an abandoned plot within a neglected school in the Island. This incident was reported on the social network X (formerly Twitter) by the NGO Food Monitor Program, which focuses on investigating the socioeconomic impact of food policies in authoritarian contexts.
According to the account by the non-governmental organization, which aims to demonstrate the use of food as a tool for political control, the elderly Cuban ran out of food and sought alternatives ranging from begging on the streets to doing odd jobs and night watches at private businesses. One day, he discovered wild tomatoes growing in the ruins of an abandoned school and decided to claim the place as his own: he fenced it, posted signs, cleared the area, prepared the soil, bought fertilizer, and started working on that small patch of land. The neighbors saw him daily, engrossed in his dream of planting corn. But then a "political commissar" reported the cultivation in a community area. The police arrived and fined him.
The elderly man not only failed to see his corn grow but also lost the time, effort, and money invested in his personal self-production project. "Today, the small furrow looks like a thicket full of dead corn plants, and no one in the area has eaten tamales," notes the Food Monitor Program.
This elderly man's story, recounted by an NGO, exposes the double standards of the regime, which on one hand encourages self-production of food with the "Cultivate Your Piece of Land" campaign, and on the other, does not clarify that some plots cannot be cultivated.
Last February, one of the five Cuban spies, Gerardo Hernández, visited and praised a Havana family who set up their garden in Los Pinos, Arroyo Naranjo, including a photo of Fidel Castro in it. The national coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) had already praised self-consumption initiatives like that of Juana Aleida, an elderly woman who planted garlic, spices, and taro in pots on the balcony of her fourth-floor apartment in La Lisa (Marianao), also in Havana. This event wouldn't be news in any other country, but the Island's propaganda system used it as a hook to promote the "Cultivate Your Piece of Land" campaign, which aimed to foster survival planting (they call it promoting food sovereignty) on an Island plagued by shortages and high prices of basic products.
Last May, Miguel Díaz-Canel himself, during a visit to the municipality of San Luis, Santiago de Cuba, expressed his conviction that there is land, strength, and hands to produce the food that the state is incapable of providing even to the most vulnerable population: the elderly who have spent their entire lives working for Cuban peso salaries, who have no family abroad, who receive a pension in the national currency, and who now form part of the poverty statistics.
Since the early months of this year, there has been a trend towards self-consumption in Cuba, using any available piece of land for this purpose. This practice, which became popular during the Special Period, has been revived by Cubans as a survival alternative in a national economy shaken by inflation, which was 31% last May, ten times higher than in Europe and the United States.
To mitigate food shortages, the regime has opted to cap the prices of six basic products: powdered milk, pasta, chicken, sausages, oil, and detergent.
FAQs on Food Cultivation and Governmental Restrictions in Cuba
Here are some frequently asked questions and answers concerning the challenges faced by Cubans in growing their food and the government's restrictive policies.
Why was the elderly man fined for growing food?
The elderly man was fined for cultivating corn on an abandoned plot within a community area without proper authorization.
What is the "Cultivate Your Piece of Land" campaign?
The "Cultivate Your Piece of Land" campaign is a government initiative that encourages Cubans to grow their food to achieve food sovereignty, despite the regime's failure to support these efforts effectively.
How has the economic situation in Cuba affected food cultivation?
Inflation and food shortages have led many Cubans to revive self-cultivation practices to survive, using any available land to grow their food.
What are the capped prices on basic products?
The government has capped the prices of powdered milk, pasta, chicken, sausages, oil, and detergent to mitigate food shortages.