2012: Which way to go?
By Elsa Claro
HAVANA – It would seem that not much is going well in Cuba. Ugly, disheartening news emerges about the farm sector, a strategic part of the economy.
Will there be a repetition of the slip that happened in Artemisa province, where farmers did not sow what could have resulted in 15,000 tons of food? The cause was attributed to contract insufficiencies (how long will this go on!?) and keeping supplies in storage instead of distributing them to farmers when the need arose.
That happened during the first quarter in 2011, but its effects remain and strongly resemble what happened in Jan.-Feb. 2012 to the distribution of pork meat.
Despite the war waged on bureaucracy, it raises its ugly head everywhere. Heads, actually, for it has many. From the explanations given to the press, and without having precise data from the farmers and the food industry that we can compare, it appears that someone miscalculated the amounts the farmers would turn over to the processors, or maybe when the meat would be available for distribution as raw or processed meat.
There are unpredictable circumstances, such as the tendency of growers to favor private vendors because they pay better than the state, even if that means that the population will have to pay higher prices. Until that contradiction is solved, the “market laws” will assert themselves, likely to the detriment of the average citizen.
It’s not a matter of irresponsible indolence alone. A street vendor of produce told me: “People don’t want to work. I pay 50 pesos per day to anyone who can help me sell. They do it for a day or two and then don’t return. It’s tough to walk the streets pushing a cart, I know, but, look, it’s a question of determination.
“I have eight diplomas (!) and one defect: I like to live well, and that requires money. Nowhere will they pay you a salary that will cover your food, clothes and entertainment. As a street vendor, I pay the taxes – which are not too high – and earn enough to pay a helper and cover my needs and whims. But, as I told you, few people want to work hard.”
This happens in the private sector, where you’re supposed to get that “proprietary feeling,” as it’s fashionable to say, when the entrepreneur sees results and tangible, direct profits. So it appears that the bad habit of pretending to work, of taking the easy route, is harder to defeat that we thought.
It also happens that even the oldest experiences – along with the most recent and most technical – have been forgotten. Such as having fodder for the animals or inseminating the cows at the right moment, not when it’s convenient for someone else. There’s a deep-rooted habit of not doing anything until somebody else brings this, that or the other, or waiting for manna to fall from the skies. Bad, very bad.
Change your mindset, people keep saying. It’s not something that happens overnight, but don’t strip the gilding, as my grandfather Perico might have said, because right now there are 700,000 Cubans working directly in agriculture and, according to some economists, that’s enough of a labor force to guarantee a substantive increase in the production of food and achieved the long-desired sufficiency. And in the same package comes a considerable savings, which is now spent buying food abroad.
It’s good to know that the new farmers are young people and it’s good to see how biotechnological products are spreading. Several therapeutic vaccines are being tested, one of them against HIV. Not everything looks gloomy, but we’re troubled by what is bad yet could be prevented.
One good thing is periodicity, the short cycles used to control basic tasks. It allows supervisors to make corrections or eliminate when required. During the recent session of the Council of Ministers, Raúl Castro said that impunity will not be permitted, referring to mishandlings in the irrigation programs and others. Theft and other crimes are being tracked down and punished more than ever before. That’s good, I think, because those crimes and violations affect the population in many ways and hinder the nation’s chances to move ahead.
Predicted for 2012 is a discreet growth in the GDP – 3.4 percent, if it can be achieved. I hope that the estimates on a possible increase in national revenues will be better and more dependable than the estimates on pork meat availability for the first quarter of the year.
Meanwhile, intellectuals and academicians continue to argue about how beneficial it would be to accept investments from Cubans living abroad (something that, in fact, works through third parties and in a small scale). Debate also continues about the nature of debate itself and other topics – such as the different forms of discrimination – that were thought to be resolved but are reemerging, like bad habits.
Are we fighting on too many fronts? We wouldn’t put the brakes on thought, but shouldn’t forget a universal human lesson: Deal first with what’s substantial and essential; leave the rest for later.
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