Cuba: Rice in Port Doesn’t Mean Rice on the Table

“We were called in to unload the rice, but the people on the ship won’t hand it over until they see the money.”

By Mercedes Garcia (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES – The ration stores and warehouses in Sancti Spíritus received the news this Monday like a bucket of cold water. The rice aboard the Santamaría, a Panama-flagged vessel that arrived from Canada in Cienfuegos on June 6, will still be delayed. The lack of payment has kept the cargo onboard, and consumers are left waiting without explanation.

Key Points

• The Santamaría ship has not yet unloaded at the port of Cienfuegos because Cuban authorities have not paid for the rice.
• The grain, destined for the June ration for sale, has not reached stores in Sancti Spíritus.
• Store clerks are prohibited from putting up signs saying “no rice” to prevent photos of shortages from being shared on Facebook.

“I was going to put up a sign saying we’re out, but we’ve been told not to post anything, because people take photos and upload them to Facebook,” said an employee at a store in the Kilo 12 district, where most of his colleagues have spent days dodging the question. His store is, in fact, so empty that in recent days it has only distributed “some leftover children’s fruit purées.”

Stevedores and other port workers are becoming accustomed to this kind of situation. “We were called in to unload the rice, and when we arrived, it turned out to be a bust—the people on the ship said they won’t deliver anything until they see the money, and that’s why it hasn’t gotten here,” an employee from the Ministry of Domestic Trade told 14ymedio.

“This used to happen only once in a long while, but now we have to halt distribution operations frequently, especially with rice, because payment for the shipment at the port hasn’t been made,” she explained. “The month is already progressing, and if this drags on for a few more days, people here won’t get their rice until the second half of June—if they’re lucky—and if not, they’ll go without rice until July or August,” she lamented.

“You can tell the rice for the ration book isn’t arriving, but the product is still coming in,” the woman pointed out.

In private stores, the price per pound of imported rice now ranges between 240 and 300 pesos in the Sancti Spíritus region, depending on quality and whether it’s sold in bulk or in one-kilogram packages—far from the 155 pesos per pound set as a price cap nationwide back in March.

The grain, a daily staple and imported from countries like Brazil, the United States, Guyana, and Vietnam, is a vital nutritional resource in many households due to the high prices of animal protein, vegetables, and greens.

The rice that ends up in private shops still comes via state importers, which private businesses are required to use. Stevedores, trucks, and warehouses used for the goods going to state-run stores are also used to channel supplies to private businesses. But while the products destined for the ration book aren’t arriving in the province, “the containers for the private businesses haven’t stopped coming.”

The cost of the Santamaría’s cargo is unknown, but it’s part of the “more than 300 million dollars” that the Cuban government spends annually to import rice for subsidized sales, according to Vice President Salvador Valdes Mesa in February. The actual amount may be even higher. According to the 2023 yearbook, that year Cuba invested 343 million dollars—a record figure in the past five years (compared to 239 million i n 2019)—especially striking given the population decline.

“It’s necessary to increase national production so that those foreign currencies can be used to meet other needs,” Valdes stated at the time, amid public discontent caused by a months-long delay in the arrival of the December 2024 rice quota, which in many provinces wasn’t distributed until mid-February this year.

Delays in unloading ships due to the government’s inability to pay are increasingly common. In April of last year, up to eleven ships circled the Island for several days loaded with food, for this very reason, as acknowledged by First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga, in the first episode of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s podcast. The situation has been repeatedly admitted by authorities, who attribute it to the effects of US economic sanctions. The problem doesn’t only affect bulk carriers, but also energy shipments.

In September 2024, as Cubans endured one of the worst waves of power outages that year, four oil tankers waited at Island ports for payment before they could unload. Less than a month ago, a similar situation occurred with liquefied petroleum gas used for cooking, which, according to Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy, had not been supplied in Cuba for 117 of the 150 days of the year at the time he made the statement.

First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.

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