14ymedio, Havana/Madrid, 9 October 2023 — The arrival of American chicken in Cuba has multiplied to such an extent that on Saturday it landed in Havana’s Nuevo Vedado market of the Youth Labor Army itself, the agro-market of the Cuban Armed Forces. In August, imports from the United States recorded absolute record figures, both in quantity and in millions of dollars.
At 35,117 tons, the figure is much higher than in the last five years, recorded in December 2022, when 30,884 tons arrived on the Island. Although the price fell by 14.6% compared to July, when 2.2 pounds of chicken cost $1.23, the volume is so high that total U.S. sales reached $37.08 million. It is more than 90% of that month’s total imports from the U.S., which rose to 39.91 million dollars.
“The ineffective official economic policy means that the MSMEs [micro, small and medium-sized enterprises], far from contributing to the national production of the main animal protein consumed in Cuba, would seem to be strengthening their dependence on imports,” said Cuban economist Pedro Monreal on his X account (Twitter). His diagnosis of the situation is overwhelming. “That high import dependence is a risk to food security,” he says.
The figures anal
