Cuba urges its citizens not to hoard rice amid shortage of staple of island diet

Cubans state radio warns against hoarding rice

HAVANA — Facing a shortage of rice and anxious to reduce the cost of importing it, Cuba is calling on citizens not to hoard the grain — no mean feat in a country that is the seventh largest consumer of rice per capita worldwide.

“We are demanding discipline and order in purchases,” state-run Radio Rebelde said during its Friday newscast. “Don’t allow, under any circumstances, people to hoard rice so they can later sell it at a higher price.”

The communist government subsidizes rice and sells it in government farmer’s markets for 3.50 pesos per pound, about $0.17. But rice has become so scarce in recent weeks that “certain unscrupulous people are hoarding,” reported the station, which broadcasts across Cuba and is among the most listened to nationwide.

Cuban officials have repeatedly said they hope to increase rice production and cut imports because of rising prices for the crop, most of which cash-short Cuba has imported from Vietnam in recent years.

The director of the government food import agency, Igor Montero, told the Communist Party-linked workers newspaper Trabajadores in January that this year Cuba could be facing rice prices that had nearly doubled what it paid until recently.

Magaly Delgado, a 72-year-old Havana retiree, complained Friday that shortages have become so acute that she has turned to the black market.

“I had to pay 10 or 15 pesos a pound to a reseller near my house,” she said.

Rice is a key component of the monthly ration Cuba’s government has maintained since 1962, allowing islanders to buy basic foods that also include eggs, potatoes, legumes, bread, sugar, salt cooking oil, coffee and a bit of chicken, fish or beef, among other items.

Distribution centers distribute five pounds of rice per person each month, charging about an American penny per pound. They then offer an additional two monthly pounds for about 4 U.S. cents each.

But food from the “libreta,” or ration book, usually provides most Cubans with only about 10 to 15 days of food. That’s where farmers’ markets come in. But rice has been hard to find there of late.

Rice is also sold in special grocery stores for tourists and foreigners who work on the island, but a pound there costs more than $2, prohibitively expensive in a country where nearly everyone is employed by the government and the average state salary is about $20 per month.

“The rice ration is sacred and never unavailable,” said Delgado, who collects a monthly pension worth about $13 per month. “But it’s not enough for pretty much anyone since we Cubans eat a lot of rice. That means you have to buy more.”

Indeed, Radio Rebelde reported that Cubans consume 700,000 tons of rice per year, making the island the seventh largest consumer of grain per capita on the planet, it said.

The government imports about 60 percent of the country’s rice, since the station said Friday that in 2009, Cuba’s domestic rice production “rose to 281,000 tons.”

President Raul Castro has used all of his recent national addresses to decry the amount his government spends on importing food, which exceeds $2 billion annually.

Hoarding is common on an island plagued by shortages of food and other basics. Sometimes toilet paper goes missing. Other times it is matches, cooking oil or eggs, potatoes, peanuts or, in this case, rice.

Authorities have sometimes moved to prohibit hoarding. After Hurricanes Gustav and Ike wiped out 30 percent of the island’s crops in the summer of 2008, officials limited how much Cubans could buy at farmers’ markets and froze prices to keep vendors from gouging.

So far, there has been no move to legislate against rice hoarding — but the station also gave no indication on when shortages of it might ease.