‘At the price of gold’, this is how pork is in Cuba

HAVANA, Dec. 27th For many habaneros this will be a year-end without pork. But, more than the scarcity of this traditional product at this time in Cuba, is the price that will mark its absence in tens of thousands of homes.

The Internal Trade authorities warned that there will be no availability of pork in their establishments in Cuban pesos, under the justification that demand far exceeds supply. Nevertheless, those families that receive remittances or have relatives who from abroad can buy them combos on online platforms, have a better chance of getting a piece of meat.

“Pork meat will not be sold even through cooperatives. According to the Government, it is imperative to control the sale to counteract speculation, intermediaries and resellers, “said Vicente Zamora, an agricultural worker linked to a cooperative in Havana.

“Individuals who have pork meat available for the next few days will be selling it at the price of gold, although in general, they have sold the animals for months. This is not a new practice, it has always existed, and is based on the approximate price that the animal will fetch once slaughtered.

Considering current prices, the pound of pork could exceed 350 pesos (about 15 dollars at the official exchange rate) in this the last week of December, “said Zamora and added that he did not know what would be the destination of the pork available in the cooperatives.

Many Havana workers will have to settle for eating chicken this end of the year. For most of the interviewees, paying for pork at current prices – between 250 and 300 pesos per pound – is unthinkable.

“For the first time in my 72 years of life, we ​​will have dinner with chicken. We will have to resign ourselves to the ‘continuity’ and ‘ordering’ that, far from guaranteeing even the cheapest meat in the world, it forces us to dispense even with traditions“lamented Herminia Carrasco, who for a week has been tracking the stores in the national currency where, according to the authorities, the whole chicken will be sold.

“And I suspect that not even that can be guaranteed for everyone,” Carrasco said. “It does not matter how many justifications or how many blocks can be invented; it is disrespectful, to say the least, that after 63 years this Government does not have pork for its people.

My pension as a retiree does not reach 3,500 pesos; spending 3,000 on ten pounds of pork is suicide. The Government believes that we all have family abroad and that this family is obliged to support its people in Cuba.. If that’s not called discrimination, I don’t know what other name it has. It is an enormous sadness that an honest worker cannot offer his family a decent end-of-the-year dinner, “said Carrasco, a retired educator.

Other Havanans, such as Felipe Montesinos Vargas, classified the panorama as a “dollarization of pork meat” that will exclude all Cubans “who do not handle foreign currency in any of its versions “.

“Private breeders will not sell the slaughtered offspring for the end of the year in Cuban pesos, but in MLC (Freely Convertible Currency) for a logical question: there are no offers of any kind in Cuban pesos, “Montesinos Vargas reasoned.

“And since you do not receive remittances from abroad, then You have to buy the MLCs on the black market at 75 Cuban pesos each. After this, the other feat is finding private breeders or sellers what, how the supply of pork meat is scarce, they can play with the prices. Only those who have relatives abroad can guarantee pork“, said Montesinos Vargas, referring to the shipping agencies for food and grooming combos towards the Island.

These agencies only support online payments using Visa, MasterCard cards or others issued by foreign banking entities. No Cuban from the Island can access this service.

The TSO Tienda agency, which “offers the sale of combos and products for Cuba“As meat and agricultural products” 100% fresh “, an offer is available consisting of seven pounds of pork loin, one litre of oil, five pounds of imported rice, three pounds of black beans and three pounds of cassava, for a total amount of 76 dollars.

With more than 15 years in the business of raising and selling pigs, Rodovaldo said that for just over a year practically He has only sold meat to two customers, who bought him everything he has available.

“In advance, they call me to slaughter three or four animals and have the parts they will buy ready. I imagine where they resell the purchase, but I am not sure, because they have never told me about that nor do I ask. My business is to sell my young and ready.

What I have leftover, almost always the guts is what I sell to neighbours and friends. I am one of those who It is not believed that the Government does not have pork for the population. Neither the pandemic nor the blockade justifies it.

But in this country, you learn not to know or ask much, less when you are in a business that tomorrow could get in the way of the Government, which can set you up in an ambush and show you on television like a vulgar thief, guilty that the people do not have pork for the end of the year. “

“There is pork meat, what there is not is money or families outside the country to buy it from you from there, or they send you a dollar yacht to buy it here. In my opinion, this will be the saddest end of the year in the lives of many, many Cubans, “concluded Rodovaldo.