14ymedio, Madrid, December 13, 2023 — The quantity and quality of the bodega (ration store) bread has been at the center of conversations, the official press and the independent media of Cuba for months. Several provinces have recognized in the last year that they are producing less or less weight, and every ship that arrived loaded with wheat “from Europe,” which, despite the tonnage, barely lasted for a few days, has been announced with great fanfare.
The reason given by the authorities has always been the same: the war between Russia and Ukraine has made imports more expensive, but this justification will have to be better explained, since the price of wheat has fallen in international markets. According to the Cuban economist Pedro Monreal, “during 2023, the price of wheat in the international market has had an oscillating trajectory with a marked downward trend. The problem with the diminishing ’weight of the bread roll’ supplied to Cubans through the rationing system should be explained in another way. It is not due to an increase in the international price of wheat.”
The problem with the “weight of the bread roll” should be explained in another way. It is not due to an increase in the international price of wheat
The expert responded in this way to the words of Víctor Díaz Acosta, director of the Provincial Food Industry Company in Sancti Spíritus, who last week gave an interview to the official newspaper of the province, Escambray, in which he stated that the price of the raw material had tripled.
“Today Cuba buys wheat to process because it is cheaper, despite the fact that before Covid and the war between Russia and Ukraine, a shipment of this grain, which provided flour for about 12 days of national production, was purchased for 4 or 5 million pesos, while today it is around 13 million,” he said after talking about the State subsidy for the product.
“It could be that the price of wheat has tripled, but it would be a misinterpretation because the international price of wheat has fallen,” says Monreal