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ISSUE NO.5//VOLUME NO.3//SEPTEMBER 2020 - COPIES




 

Cuba to widen food rationing as supply crisis bites

Havana says it will extend the rationing of food and other products in the face of hardened US sanctions. The political and economic crisis in Venezuela is also partially to blame.
In this April 17, 2019 file photo, people wait in line to buy chicken at a government-run grocery store in Havana, Cuba (picture-alliance/AP Photo/R. Espinosa)
The Cuban government will widen the wholesale rationing of staple food items and other basic products in the face of a grave supply crisis, Commerce Minister Betsy Diaz Velazquez said Friday.
She said some items, such as chicken, would be limited to a fixed amount per purchase or per customer.
Other items, including eggs, rice, beans and sausages, would only be available to buy with a ration card, and would be limited to a maximum monthly amount.

 Read more: New US policy on seized property in Cuba threatens EU ties

 Cuba, which imports 60% to 70% of its food, already has a system of rationing, but additional amounts are available at higher "liberated" prices. The new rules would ensure that all those foods would be rationed.
"Selling limited quantities will lead to equal distribution, so that the greatest number of people can buy the product, and we can avoid hoarding," Diaz said. Many of the products included have become increasingly scarce, with long queues forming when they become available.
Increasingly hard to source supplies
Urging calm, Diaz said that importing food from the US had become more complicated under President Donald Trump because of tighter sanctions. That, she said, had forced Cuba to search for products that were more expensive and difficult to import.
However, Cuba has also suffered from a halving of oil deliveries from economically and politically stricken Venezuela. The island nation trades the work of Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela for oil that it then resells to other countries in return for foreign currency.
Friday's announcement is a setback for the Cuban government, which had aimed to end the rationing system established after the 1959 revolution.
rc/amp (AP, dpa, Reuters)

For Cubans, the struggle to supplement meagre rations is a consuming obsession

havana pork vendor

A vendor sets out pork to sell on a street in Havana. Asked for beef, one butcher replied: ‘I’ve forgotten what it tastes like.’
Photograph: Enrique de la Osa/Reuters


The trials of food shopping in a land of inefficient agriculture and a US embargo, where travellers stuff suitcases with powdered milk and eggs are elusive

Joe Lamar in Havana


As a percussionist with one of Havana’s oldest and best known bands, Orlando Ramos has toured the world, attended dozens of international festivals and collaborated with a host of stars ranging from Billy Joel to Silvio Rodríguez.
But while musicians from other countries might return from such trips with fine wines, aged whiskies or perhaps even exotic drugs, Ramos’s first priority when packing his bags to go home is something far more fundamental: milk.
Regular shortages of milk and other such basic goods underscore the many problems facing Cuba’s centrally planned and US-embargoed economy.
This makes a shopping trip an onerous and often disappointing task – even for those like Ramos who have a little spare cash.
“The hardest thing to find here is milk,” says the 75-year-old, who has played for more than 40 years with Manguaré. “Whenever I travel, my suitcases are full of powdered milk when I return.”
Millions of Cubans have faced similar – or worse – problems for decades, but President Raúl Castro has moved in recent years to change the system with a series of modest market reforms. The recent rapprochement with the US – which was the island’s main trading partner before the cold war – is also a source of hope for fuller shop shelves.
After the 1959 revolution, Cuba adopted a socialist food production and distribution system that ensured a survival level of heavily subsidised food for everyone. With extra rations for children and the elderly, it helps to account for the country’s impressive levels of longevity and low infant mortality.
A man sells roast chickens along a highway near Artemisa, some 80km (50 miles) west of Havana.

A man sells roast chickens along a highway near Artemisa, some 80km (50 miles) west of Havana. Photograph: Desmond Boylan/Reuters


The system continues today. Every Cuban family registers with a local supply store, where they can use a libreta or ration book. This typically provides about 10kg (22lb) of rice, 6kg of white sugar, 2kg of brown sugar, 250 millilitres (1 cup) of cooking oil, five eggs and a packet of coffee per person per month, along with 2kg of meat (usually chicken) every 10 days, a bun every day and a bag of salt every three months. Milk is provided for pregnant women and children under seven years of age.

The basic libreta products are guaranteed, but they are not enough – so people often have to travel to several places on several different days to make up the shortfall. Where to find eggs is a common subject of discussion.

“The rations are enough for rice and sugar, but for other products, they only last five or six days so you have to buy extra. You have to spend a lot of time before you can get everything you need,” said one of the more affluent families in the Náutico district of the city. “We hire a messenger to do the shopping for us.”

A farmer sells his produce out of the boot of his car at a market in the village of Sagua La Grande in central Cuba.

A farmer sells his produce out of the boot of his car at a market in the village of Sagua La Grande in central Cuba. Photograph: Desmond Boylan/Reuters

For decades, many items have effectively been off-limits to those who could only pay in pesos. At a farmers’ market near Miramar, the sign outside a butcher’s stall offers only three cuts of pork. Asked for beef, the butcher scoffs. “I’ve forgotten what it tastes like,” he jokes. “I haven’t had it since I was a child.”

To buy scarcer items, Cubans used to need the currency used by tourists – the CUC (Convertible Unit of Currency), which can be used at “dollar stores” which offer a far wider variety of goods. Partly for this reason, many skilled engineers and doctors found part-time jobs as taxi drivers or hotel staff to add a CUC income to their meagre peso salaries.

This is starting to change. Items on the shelves at the Centro Comercial Náutico – a fairly large dollar store in the suburbs of Havana – are priced in both pesos and CUCs as a step towards the currency integration promised by the government. But they remain expensive relative to incomes. A kilo of milk powder costs almost a third of the monthly salary of 500 pesos (about £14/$21). A steak dinner can cost a family half this income.


Even at these prices, the shop has run out of butter, ketchup and short pasta. The black market partially fills the vacuum. On roadsides further out of town, unauthorised hawkers tout bags of sausages, crackers, potatoes and other products that are scarce or only supposed to be available through the state system.

With money, it is possible to eat well in Havana. One result of reform has been an explosion of private restaurants – known as paladares – which have given those who can afford it a choice of Italian, Spanish and French cuisine, including lobster, steak, shrimps and even crocodile meat.

But for most people, the basics are often hard to come by. The 1960 US embargo is part of the problem as was the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, but Cuba’s inefficient farming system is also to blame. Although agriculture is supposed to be at the forefront of reforms, the changes have been patchy and the results so far unimpressive.

Tourists eat at a <em>paladar</em> or home restaurant in the town of Cienfuegos.


Tourists eat at a paladar or home restaurant in the town of Cienfuegos. Photograph: Desmond Boylan/Reuters


Less than an hour’s drive outside Havana are Cuba’s most productive pastures and croplands, but the country still needs to import about 80% of its food. To boost domestic production, government reforms have created a wholesale market for agricultural goods, leased millions of acres of idle state land to individual farmers and relaxed the old requirement that 70% of farm produce must be sold to the state at below-market prices.

The declared aim of the reforms is to update the socialist model rather than to replace it. Raúl Castro, who has promised to step aside in 2018, has said his motto is “slowly but without pause”. But stuck in transition, older farmers say the new incentives have not made up for the loss of subsidies.

Dairy herders Julia Menéndez and her husband are struggling to make ends meet for the first time in decades. An increase in fodder prices means it now costs more to feed their nine cows than they get from the state for their milk, which sells at a controlled price of 1 peso (less than three pence, or five cents) a litre. The elderly couple are exhausted cutting sugarcane every day as an alternative food for their cattle.

“I’ve been a farmer all my life and this is the hardest it has ever been,” said Menéndez, whose name has been changed. “We want to sell up and move.”

Her son, who has a bigger cattle ranch, is doing better. But his herd has suffered from the pressures of excess demand. A few months ago, he woke to find one of his cows had been butchered in its shed. The rustlers had used the cover of a rainstorm to sneak in, inject the animal with a tranquilliser and then remove its legs, rump and other prime cuts.

It was a high-risk crime. Cuba’s criminal code has also been distorted by economic controls. The maximum penalty for illegally slaughtering a cow and selling the meat is 18 years in prison. “You can get a lighter sentence for killing a person,” exclaims Noriel Menéndez, the nephew of the farmers. And the stiff punishment is not just for steak thieves: last month, a dozen people were sentenced to between five and 15 years for conspiring to divert millions of eggs – another scarce commodity – to the black market.

Closer ties with the US may ease such pressures. Currently, Cuba imports about $2bn a year of food. It is costly because of the distances involved. Most of the rice, for example, comes from Vietnam.

A family of farmers selling mangoes wait for customers at the side of a road on the outskirts of Havana.


A family of farmers selling mangoes wait for customers at the side of a road on the outskirts of Havana. Photograph: Desmond Boylan/Reuters/Corbis
 

The US is only 90 miles away but it supplied just 15% of the island’s agricultural imports last year. Although the US embargo theoretically allows sales of food and medicine to the island, it also includes restrictions on credit and shipping that make such trade prohibitively complicated and expensive.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the powerful US farm lobby is one of the biggest advocates of ending sanctions and was among the first to send a delegation to Cuba after Castro and Barack Obama announced plans to strengthen ties on 17 December.

Although food shortages are nothing new, they are among several factors behind Havana’s recent engagement with Washington.

“Cuba’s agricultural sector is in dire straits. Raúl Castro is trying to deal with the crisis but reforms put in place have had limited effect. He is trying to pursue other options, including opening with the US,” said Michael Shifter, president of Inter-American Dialogue, a US-based thinktank.

“Perhaps ironically, the most intense efforts to address Cuba’s troubles of shortages and high prices on goods are coming from US agricultural business interests keen to lift the embargo. They see an attractive untapped market in Cuba.”

Hopes for greater improvements are growing. But until now, neither diplomatic initiatives nor economic reforms have made a noticeable difference to the empty shelves and high prices of Havana’s shops.

So the coping mechanisms continue – extra jobs, remittances from overseas, chickens in the back yard and luggage full of groceries.

“When I come back, I’ll bring milk, cheese and other stuff,” the musician Ramos says ahead of his band’s latest two-month tour of the US. “I’m thinking of buying a really big box for it all – big enough for a cow.”
 https://www.theguardian.com
 Cuba to increase rationing amid shortages


Cuba has announced rationing of more products amid shortages it blames on the US trade embargo and hoarders.
There have been hours-long queues for basic foodstuffs in recent weeks on the Caribbean island.
People have posted photos of long waits at the supermarket under the hashtag #lacolachallenge, meaning queue challenge.
A universal rationing system was introduced on the island just after the revolution in 1959.
In 2017 US President Donald Trump reimposed some trade and travel restrictions lifted by his predecessor Barack Obama, although he kept the embassy open in Havana and did not end flights to the country.
But less aid from ally Venezuela has also led to shortages of essentials - as has a drop in exports - leaving the Communist-run island struggling to pay for imports.
Cuba brings in up to 70% of its food from abroad. Numerous agricultural reforms in recent years have failed to boost production.
Commerce Minister Betsy Díaz said supermarkets will now restrict how much people can buy of certain products like chicken and soap, while other items - including rice, beans, eggs and sausage - will only be available on the ration card, and limited to a monthly amount.
"Our mission is to fracture all the measures the US government imposes, and today we are setting priorities," she said.
But Ms Díaz also blamed Cubans who hoard products for the shortages, saying some people kept items they felt might disappear from the shops while others resold goods on the black market.
Journalist Yoani Sánchez tweeted that what was once of the best-stocked shops in the city had "turned into a battlefield to get a kilogram of frozen chicken".

In April, 91-year-old Cuban revolutionary Guillermo García Frías suggested Cubans could eat ostriches, crocodile and edible rodents known as jutía amid the shortages, prompting a flood of memes mocking the commander's suggestion. 
https://www.bbc.com

 Cuba Implements Food Rationing as Its Economy Enters Crisis Mode

It’s clear that price controls are in the Cuban state’s toolbox of economic tricks and won’t be going away anytime soon.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Image Credit: dassel from Pixabay | Pixabay License (https://pixabay.com/service/license/)

José Niño
José Niño
Economics
While it is fashionable to talk about Venezuela and its notorious shortage of basic goods such as toilet paper, flour, and milk, Cuba is now implementing a rationing program to combat its very own shortages of basic goods. A CBC report indicates this program would cover basic items such as chicken, eggs, rice, beans, and soap.
The lowest common denominator in the Cuban economy during the past five decades is excessive government control.
What has caused these shortages has been a subject of debate. Cuban Minister of Commerce Betsy Diaz Velazquez blames the Trump administration’s stiffening of the trade embargo with the island nation. Others contend that decreasing aid from Venezuela has contributed to Cuba’s newly emerging rationing dilemma. Over the past few years, Venezuela has provided Cuba with subsidized fuel and other forms of aid in order to keep its basic infrastructure intact.
Although these explanations do have validity and will be touched upon later, there is another factor that is not being considered. The lowest common denominator in the Cuban economy during the past five decades is excessive government control.
When Fidel Castro took control of Cuba in 1959, the Cuban state maintained an iron grip on the economy. For decades, the country has been a communist garrison state with very little respect for property rights and civil liberties such as free speech. More than 140,000 Cubans perished under the Castro regime, according to certain estimates, while millions of Cubans fled to the United States to start a new life.
Alvarez also notes that even with the Soviet Union effectively serving as Cuba’s sugar daddy, the country still had to ration goods and services.
During this timespan, economic stability was never really an option in Cuba. Because of the economic dislocations caused by state control of many industries, the government has had to provide citizens with Libretas de Abastecimiento (supply booklets) to ration out basic goods like rice, sugar, and matches. This system was established in 1962 in response to the economic sanctions the American government placed on Cuba which caused shortages of food, medicines, and supplies. From a free-market perspective, these sanctions should be condemned. They not only infringe on the rights of Americans who wish to do commerce and travel to Cuba, but they also do very little to topple tyrannical regimes.
But in the case of Cuba’s economic problems, there is a reason to believe they go beyond America’s embargo on the country. Jose Alvarez of the University of Florida does initially concede that “Cuba was forced to establish a rationing system for basic food and industrial products. This has brought serious limitations to consumers and their choice availability” after the initial blockade by the U.S. government.
However, Alvarez adds that solely pinning the blame on sanctions is misguided:
To blame US economic sanctions for the existence of a rationing system of basic food products is not a very sound argument to justify Cuba's socialist system. It is an admission that Cubans cannot even produce what grows very easily on Cuban soil. If one lists the food products that have been rationed since 1962, it becomes evident that almost all of them were in abundance before the 1959 revolution and were produced domestically.
Alvarez also notes that even with the Soviet Union effectively serving as Cuba’s sugar daddy, the country still had to ration goods and services:
It is interesting to recall that, when the Soviet bloc was subsidizing the Cuban economy to the tune of five billion dollars per year, food was still rationed in Cuba.
U.S. sanctions on Cuba have generally allowed exemptions for humanitarian aid and basic products. The Trade Sanction Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 permitted the sale of certain foods and medicine, albeit to a limited extent. Even with sanctions in place, Cubans have found ways to bring goods to the market, but the Cuban state has remained an obstacle.
This was most clear during Cuba’s Special Period when the country could no longer rely on Soviet Union aid to prop it up. The country began to open up its markets to a limited degree by trading with other countries and making lukewarm attempts towards privatization. However, the government still stood in the way of allowing Cuba to have a functioning market, which Alvarez also points out:
Granted, some Cubans have been unable to consume a wide variety of food products because of the high prices under the rationing system, but there have been periods in which the abundance of several products have demonstrated the feasibility of returning to a stable and ample food supply. Examples include the proliferation of FrutiCuba (a chain of government stores) which was devoted exclusively to selling fruits and vegetables in the mid-1960s, free farmers' markets in the 1980s, the free agricultural markets after 1994, and the new food outlets. These testify to the ability of Cuban farmers to produce abundant food supplies despite US economic sanctions, that could do away with the food rationing system.
The embargo on Cuba only affects current trade relations with America and the island nation. Cuba can still trade with other countries to acquire some of the rationed products. Indeed, Cuba does have a track record of not making debt payments. And when it’s no longer receiving aid from Moscow or Caracas, Cuba’s economic flaws stick out like a sore thumb, which generally makes it an unattractive trading partner.
Cuba’s recent political behavior indicates that the country’s leadership still does not get basic economics. In the midst of Hurricanes Gustave and Ike in 2008, the Cuban government responded with price controls. On top of the damage that the hurricanes dealt with Cuba, these price controls created even larger shortages than expected according to Reuters.
But Cuba’s price control forays did not end there. According to Agencia EFE, Cuba enacted price controls in May 2016 with the aim of increasing the stockpile and sale of highly demanded agricultural products. It’s clear that price controls are in the Cuban state’s toolbox of economic tricks and likely won’t be going away anytime soon.
Food staples such as plantains, beans, and mangos were covered under these price ceilings. Basic economics demonstrates that price controls cause shortages. When a price ceiling below the market rate is imposed, artificial demand ensues. In turn, suppliers, who look at the government-imposed price, act accordingly by not supplying as many goods to the market, which often causes shortages. Based on its most recent actions, it’s clear that price controls are in the Cuban state’s toolbox of economic tricks and likely won’t be going away anytime soon. The Cuban people will continue to suffer as a result.
The Cuban’s regime despotism is well-documented and merits private condemnation. However, this does not mean that top-down regime change nor sanctions are the best means of getting Cuba on the path towards markets.
Although Cuba’s economic ills are largely self-inflicted, U.S. sanctions aren’t making things better. There are some caveats to consider. Broad-based sanctions like the ones the U.S. has imposed on Cuba provide the regime political cover. They can now scapegoat the U.S. government for all of its problems. Ryan McMaken notes in an article dealing with Venezuela, that non-interventionism, both in terms of military action and economic sanctions, is the best approach to take for enhancing freedom. The same logic applies to Cuba. More meddling will embolden radicals within the regime and give them another boogieman to scapegoat.
Cuba will have to learn that it needs to stick to the basic economic principles if it wants to break free from its long-standing cycle of poverty.
When sanctions are taken out of the equation, it becomes clear to the populace and reform-minded figures within the government that their economic malaise is home-brewed. Even China, which featured one of the most heinous cases of democide under Communism, made a decent transition to a nominally capitalist economy in the 1980s under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. However, this would have never started if it wasn’t for Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, which normalized trade and diplomatic relations between the two nations.
America can have a role to play in Cuba’s economic revival, but it will do so by removing sanctions. This will remove any doubt as to whether it’s the U.S.’s punitive economic policies that are making the island nation more impoverished. Getting rid of this confounding variable is key for the country to move forward. More punitive measures, like the “highest level” sanctions that Trump promised to impose on Cuba in April, will reduce the influence of reform-minded individuals within the regime. It’s simply too easy for demagogic leaders to turn to radicals within a government who are eager to scapegoat foreign countries and stoke up the nationalistic sentiment against America.
However, the ball is still in Cuba’s court. After more than 50 years of embracing socialist governance, Cuba will have to learn that it needs to stick to the basic economic principles if it wants to break free from its long-standing cycle of poverty.

 https://fee.org
   Dividing the pie: Cuba's ration system after 50 years
GettyImages

(Note: this article is republished from Telesur.)
La libreta, the Cuba ration booklet, encapsulates the debate about Cuba’s socialist experiment. Detractors say that the fact that food is still rationed after 50 years, and that over 60 percent of the island’s food is still imported, proves the failure of a bureaucratic, state-run economy sapping the entrepreneurial spirit of workers and farmers. Supporters say the ration book exemplifies the Cuban government’s commitment to the health and welfare of its people in the face of a relentless US blockade. They say that thanks to Cuba’s guaranteed food basket and free healthcare, the poor island nation has one of the lowest infant mortality rates and highest life expectancy rates in the world.
Both are right.
I lived in Cuba during the early 1980s, when the Soviet Union still existed and was subsidizing the Cuban economy to the tune of $4-6 billion a year. In those days, eating was an egalitarian exercise. The ration every family received for a small fee was enough to last all month and guaranteed everyone a decent diet. It included rice, beans, lentils, milk, coffee, weekly portions of chicken and hamburger meat, occasional fish and pork.
When the weekly chicken ration arrived at the market, you could smell chicken cooking in every kitchen in the neighborhood--fried chicken, soups, stews. As a nutritionist who had worked with starving children in Africa, I delighted in the knowledge that every family would be enjoying a good dinner. Sure, Cubans complained that they often couldn’t get the onion, garlic or tomatoes to cook the food to their taste, but the basics were always there.
Not today. The ration booklet has been shrinking over the decades. This would be fine if it reflected abundance, but it doesn’t. The worst period was right after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Cuba’s ability to import food dropped by 75%. During the terrible next decade, which the government dubbed the “Special Period” and people called “el tiempo de los flacos” (the skinny period), the rations fell by half, the average Cuban lost 20 pounds, and persistent hunger—something not seen since before the revolution—became a daily reality.
The Cuban economy has improved considerably since then, thanks in part to the rise in tourism dollars and to Venezuela’s subsidized oil. Still, the monthly ration is just enough to keep people from starving but not enough for a good diet, much less a satisfying one.
Each Cuban receives a monthly ration of seven pounds of rice, a pound of beans, half a bottle of cooking oil, one bread roll per day, plus small quantities of eggs, chicken or fish, spaghetti, and sugar. There are items for special occasions — cakes for birthdays, rum and beer for weddings—and “vulnerable people” get extra rations. Children get a liter of milk and some yogurt. People with health problems, like diabetics, get extra rations.
Ninety-year-old Aleida Fernandez told me that when she developed high blood pressure, her doctor gave her a note that added three fish a month to her ration. “This way the government guarantees I get enough protein,” said a grateful Fernandez, who lives on a pension of $15 a month but has free healthcare and like most Cubans, pays no rent. 
Cubans pay less than $2 for their monthly rations, which is an estimated 12 percent of the food’s real value. It’s a lifesaver for the poor but it leaves the government subsidizing every man, woman and child, regardless of income. With a price tag of over $1 billion annually, it’s clear why reform-minded President Raul Castro would like to see la libretadisappear.
In 2011 Castro said the ration system distributes food at “laughable prices” and that a system introduced in a time of shortages has turned into “an unbearable burden for the economy and a disincentive to work.”
But his proposal to eliminate the ration was scrapped when met with fierce opposition, particularly from low-wage state workers and retirees struggling to get by on $15 a month. “I can’t imagine how I’d survive if I had to buy my food on the open market,” complained retiree Ophelia Muñoz. “The market prices are so high that I can barely afford potatoes and boniato, much less beans or chicken.”
It’s a different story for Cubans who work in the tourist sector or receive remittances from their families abroad. With access to hard currency, they can afford market prices and they can supplement their diets with restaurant meals.
But the best food is reserved for tourists. Gourmet meals are offered in private restaurants called paladares that have cropped up all over the island. Poor Cubans can now see the sumptuous fare offered to tourists—lobster, shrimp, pork, steak—and they are left wondering why they are stuck with rice and chickpeas. “We’re not starving like people in Haiti,” said Berta Fernandez, a clerk who lives on a salary of $20 a month. “But we smell the pork roasting in the restaurant down the block and we’re left with this craving.”
The unequal access to food is just one reflection of what is becoming more and more of a two-tiered economy, with one group scraping by on national pesos and the other benefitting from access to hard currency. The revolution wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.
At an elementary school we visited in Havana, teacher Olivia Gonzalez said they don’t allow students to bring their lunches from home. Why? Because some students would bring coveted items like meat and soda while poorer students would have simpler fare. “We want the children to all have the same opportunities and not grow up with a sense of inferiority,” Gonzalez explained. “So it’s better for them all to eat the same.” To cut down on costs and provide healthy meals, many schools are trying to grow as much of their own food as they can. 
Raul Castro is trying to find a middle way, stimulating the economy while preserving revolutionary gains like free healthcare and education. His market-oriented reforms include cutting back on subsidies, slashing bloated state payrolls and encouraging more private enterprise—especially for farmers. 
The historic opening with the US has ignited hopes that the US will stop sabotaging Cuba, and that greater tourism and trade will help the economy grow. Even before the opening, Cuba was buying $500 million worth of agricultural goods from the United States. Food sales were an exception to the embargo but sales had to be made in cash. The new rules that allow Cuba to use US banks and obtain loans will lead to more imports—a win for both countries.
Many worry that the US opening, accompanied by a flood of tourists and US corporate investments, will be a recipe for an even greater gap between the haves and have-nots. Certainly the days are gone when Cubans eat the same meals at the same time, and perhaps the universal libreta will be replaced by a food stamp system based on need. But in Cuba, food is still considered a basic human right. As the economy expands, the hope is that Cubans across the island will have access to a more varied diet. In a world where so many people still go hungry, Cuba could become a model of how to grow the pie—and make sure that everyone gets a piece. 
https://www.codepink.org

Cuba's ration book stages comeback due to coronavirus pandemic
CGTN

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