{"id":7978,"date":"2022-11-13T22:21:42","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T03:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7978"},"modified":"2022-11-13T22:21:42","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T03:21:42","slug":"droughts-rising-seas-put-cubas-agriculture-under-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7978","title":{"rendered":"Droughts, Rising Seas Put Cuba’s Agriculture Under Threat"},"content":{"rendered":"
A man moves on a tractor along the highway at dawn, in Batabano, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Cuba is suffering from longer droughts, warmer waters, more intense storms, and higher sea levels because of climate change. (AP Photo\/Ismael Francisco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yord\u00e1n D\u00edaz Gonzales pulled weeds from his fields with a tractor until Cuba\u2019s summer rainy season turned them into foot-deep red mud.<\/p>\n

Now it takes five farmhands to tend to D\u00edaz\u2019s crop. That shrinks Diaz\u2019s profit margin and lowers Cuba\u2018s agricultural productivity, already burdened by a U.S. embargo and an unproductive state-controlled economy.<\/p>\n

Like the rest of the Caribbean, Cuba is suffering from longer droughts, warmer waters, more intense storms, and higher sea levels because of climate change. The rainy season, already an obstacle, has gotten longer and wetter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re producing a lot less because of the weather,\u201d said Diaz, a 38-year-old father of two. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to adapt to eating less because with every crop, we harvest less.\u201d<\/p>\n

A man applies chemical products to crops to eliminate pests in Batabano, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. (AP Photo\/Ismael Francisco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A man applies chemical products to crops to eliminate pests in Batabano, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. (AP Photo\/Ismael Francisco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Agricultural workers clear weeds from a Malanga plantation in Batabano, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Cuba is suffering from longer droughts, warmer waters, more intense storms, and higher sea levels because of climate change. The rainy season, already an obstacle to Cuban agricultural production, has gotten longer and wetter. (AP Photo\/Ismael Francisco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Diaz used to produce black beans, a staple of the Cuban diet and his most profitable crop. His black-bean production has dropped 70%, which he attributes to climate change. A month after Hurricane Ian hit Cuba, Diaz was farming malanga root, a Cuban staple that is more resilient to climate change, but less profitable than beans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just living in the present,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cMy future doesn\u2019t look very good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diaz used to buy supplies a year or two ahead of needing them but his earnings are so unpredictable now that he buys his supplies right before the harvest.<\/p>\n

Agriculture has long been a relative bright spot in Cuba\u2019s struggling economy. The socialist government has had a relatively liberal hand with food producers, allowing them to pursue their economic interests more openly than others in Cuba.<\/p>\n

A palm tree is reflected in water in Surgidero de Batabano, in Batabano, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. (AP Photo\/Ismael Francisco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cuba has ample sun, water and soil, the basic ingredients needed to grow plants and feed animals. By changing the way nature functions in the Caribbean, however, climate change is tinkering with the raw elements of productivity.<\/p>\n

When Ian hit Bataban\u00f3, about an hour south of Havana, it flooded fisherman Orbelis Silega\u2019s home and destroyed his fridge and TV. He was already struggling due to reduced fish stocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe house was halfway full of water,\u201d said Silega, 54. \u201cEverything was underwater.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cubans are leaving the island in the highest numbers in decades.<\/p>\n

A bicycle and raft used by fishermen sits near the water in the Surgidero, in Batabano, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. (AP Photo\/Ismael Francisco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

American authorities encountered nearly 221,000 Cubans on the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2022. It was a 471% increase from the year before, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.<\/p>\n

As with everything in Cuba, the outflow is being driven by a complex mix of domestic management of politics and the economy, and relations with the U.S. and other countries.<\/p>\n

A part of what\u2019s driving the flow is climate change, which cost Cuba $65.85 billion in gross domestic product between 1990 and 2014 alone, 9% of its total GDP, according to Dartmouth College.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaribbean economies, tourism, agriculture and fishing, are at the forefront\u201d of climate change, said Donovan Campbell, a climate-change expert at Jamaica\u2019s University of the West Indies.<\/p>\n

The $2 to $3 that farm hand Romelio Acosta earns for 10 hours of work isn\u2019t enough to pay his expenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now there\u2019s no money and there\u2019s no food,\u201d said Acosta, 77. \u201dEverything is more expensive than people\u2019s salaries can pay for.\u201d<\/p>\n

A classic American car drives past utility poles tilted by Hurricane Ian in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, Sept. 27, 2022. (AP Photo\/Ramon Espinosa)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
People line up at a tanker truck distributing drinking water amid the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in La Coloma, Pinar del Rio province, Cuba, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. When Category 3 hurricane Ian ravaged western Cuba at the end of September, Cuba was already in one of its worst economic, political and energy crises in decades, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian war with Ukraine, among other factors. (AP Photo\/Ramon Espinosa, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
People stand along a waterfront as huge waves crash against a seawall in the wake of Hurricane Ian in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022. When Category 3 hurricane Ian ravaged western Cuba at the end of September, Cuba was already in one of its worst economic, political and energy crises in decades, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian war with Ukraine, among other factors. (AP Photo\/Ramon Espinosa, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Category 3 hurricane, Ian ravaged western Cuba at the end of September, killing three people, destroying 14,000 homes, damaging the power network and destroying Cuba\u2019s most-valued tobacco fields.<\/p>\n

Cuba was already in one of its worst economic, political and energy crises in decades, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian war with Ukraine, among other factors.<\/p>\n

Cuba had said that it would get nearly a quarter of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. But so far the country gets little more than 5% of its energy from renewables and still depends on oil from allies Venezuela and Russia.<\/p>\n

The U.S. trade embargo \u201cimpedes us from accessing the resources we could have that would make it possible for us to recover from these events as quickly as possible,\u201d said Adianez Taboada, vice minister of Cuba\u2019s Science, Technology and Environmental Ministry.<\/p>\n

A fisherman works at the boat berth at Surgidero de Batabano in Batabano, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. (AP Photo\/Ismael Francisco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A fisherman shows his poor catch of fish in Surgidero de Batabano in Batabano, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Cuba is suffering from longer droughts, warmer waters, more intense storms, and higher sea levels because of climate change. (AP Photo\/Ismael Francisco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Around Bataban\u00f3, the coastal town hit by Ian, mattresses soaked by the storm still hang on the wobbly wooden houses.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou try to salvage what you can,\u201d Silega, the fisherman, said.<\/p>\n

Life was already hard for him due largely to climate change, he said. Rising global temperatures ravage coral reefs, key marine ecosystems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis town without fish is nothing,\u201d Silega said. \u201cThe best fish, the ones that still appear, you have to go much further to find them.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Megan Janetsky, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n

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Yord\u00e1n D\u00edaz Gonzales pulled weeds from his fields with a tractor until Cuba\u2019s summer rainy season turned them into foot-deep red mud. Now it takes five farmhands to tend to D\u00edaz\u2019s crop. That shrinks Diaz\u2019s profit margin and lowers Cuba\u2018s agricultural productivity, already burdened by a U.S. embargo and an unproductive state-controlled economy. Like the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/afs-prod\/media\/d8047e70ea06405b9b5769cd297dc192\/1000.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Droughts, Rising Seas Put Cuba’s Agriculture Under Threat","footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7980,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7978\/revisions\/7980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}