MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Castro promises idle land to farmers to boost food production

Cuban President Raul Castro

Cuban President Raul Castro announced the redistribution of government land that is not in use to private farmers to stimulate food production and efficient farming. Cuba in spite of abundant farm land must import half of its food.

The Cuban government will hand over a "considerable percentage" of idle land to farmers to increase food production and reduce imports, according to a decree published in Cuba's official newspaper Granma. This the latest of a series of bold measures decided by Castro since he succeeded his brother Fidel Castro as president in February. Since then, he has lifted a ban on mobile phones and computers, allowed locals to stay in hotels and earn wages based on merit, and permitted private taxi drivers to apply for licenses. The Cuban government will grant land rights for as much as 10 years for private individuals, renewable for a further 10 years, and as much as 25 years for companies and cooperatives, renewable for 25 years. Farmers who don't already own land can get as much as 13.4 hectares, while those who already own land can increase it to 40.3 hectares, according to the decree. "This is the first substantial reform to Cuba's economic model carried out by Raul'' said Jorge Piñón, a researcher at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American studies at the University of Miami who added that all other reforms "were purely cosmetic geared to the general population so they could have a better standard of living". Cuba which at one time was one of the world's leading exporters of sugar has since production fall 75% since the year 2000 to 100.000 tons annually, according to the US Department of Agriculture. It is estimated that the loss of revenue both in sugar and ethanol in Cuba could be in excess of 2.5 billion US dollars.