Photo: File/Cubadebate.

In the year 2022, the sugar that is distributed to the Commerce system in Cuba had an affectation of about 60,000 tons, based on the results of the 2021-2022 harvest, considered the lowest production in more than 100 years.

Leticia Ojeda, commercial director of the Food Group of the Ministry of Domestic Trade (Mincin), explained to the Granma newspaper that at the end of 2022 some provinces began to feel even more the effects caused by the reduction in the planned plan, as well as the deliveries of the product suffered delays.

As a result, he maintained, the sugar that the wineries had to receive to ensure total distribution as of the first day of the month could not be met in all the territories, and the consumers who bought in the first days could only be sold two pounds, to deliver the rest in the following weeks.

For example,

, the directive specified.

The director of Information Technology, Communications and Analysis of the Azcuba business group, Dionis Pérez Pérez, explained that in the case of deliveries corresponding to February consumption, these are 60% fulfilled, with delays in Artemisa, Havana, Mayabeque and Pinar del River.

He indicated, in this regard, that

The completion of Mayabeque depends on the solution of the failure of the two turbogenerators of the Boris Luis Santa Coloma plant, and in the case of Havana it is solved with the transportation of the product from Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus and the Port of Carúpano.

The commercial director of the Mincin Food Group pointed out that given

He stressed that the wholesale food companies in the provinces were also forced to make adjustments in the reconciliations with TecnoAzúcar, which makes the contracts with the mills and distributes the allocations to Commerce.

Until the end of December 2022, only 69% of the sugar planned to date had been produced in the current harvest.

Photo: Modesto Gutiérrez Cabo/ ACN.

The decision adopted, he explained, was for the territories to make the distribution no longer by type of assortment, but as a total product, respecting the principle of distributing the pounds that correspond to each consumer, whether they were raw or refined sugar.

He recalled that according to the policy approved by the Mincin, the distribution of sugar (four pounds per capita) has a different scheme for each province: some assume the system of three pounds of raw sugar and one of refined, in others it is two and two;

or 1.5 and 2.5 pounds of each assortment.

According to the Granma text, by 2023 the Mincin Food Group plans to receive 310,000 tons of sugar per plan and, of these, 240,500 are for the standard family basket.

The analysis of this situation, commented Pérez Pérez, cannot be seen in isolation from the obsolescence that the sugar industry suffers today and the negative impact of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States in the acquisition of resources for the repair and maintenance of machinery. , transport and industry.

Despite these limitations, which are real and end up directly affecting the population, the sector also urgently needs to move towards a business model in which diversification and the circular economy (the use of everything that cane gives) can offer enough money, in order to increase profitability, boost its development and guarantee growth.

Sugar will continue to come from the mills, but the strategy is to produce to satisfy national, domestic and industrial consumption, and export another part, according to commitments and the market.

Regarding the results of this harvest, the Granma report states that

;

however, the recovery of some 7000 tons for industrial efficiency concept also stands out, by achieving a higher yield of 1.14%.

(With information from Granma and ACN)