“IF YOU WANT to become profitable in Cuba, purchase garlic,” says a farmer in Artemisa province, in western Cuba. Garlic, often called “white gold” for its worth, is important to the distinctive sazón, or seasoning, of Cuban meals—which regularly needs to be made with a number of substances imaginatively thrown collectively. As with so many issues on the communist island, nevertheless, it's in brief provide. An absence of fertiliser and pesticide makes it particularly laborious to develop. And it's harvested solely yearly, in January.
Yearly garlic-sellers on the streets of Havana peddle bulbs from backpacks, as if promoting pretend luxurious purses or electronics. The worth of garlic tends to growth round November and December, earlier than extra comes onto the (black) market. A pensioner in a single a part of the capital complains that a bulb now prices 25 pesos ($1) and 450g (1lb) prices 240 pesos, 4 occasions the worth in September.
One other strategy to get the bulbs is thru ajeros, or garlic resellers. They pay garlic farmers $50,000-100,000 to purchase their complete harvest after which resell it to a community of different resellers, who in flip promote to smaller resellers and so forth. Ajero kingpins make a lot money from these transactions that banks, particularly the small ones out within the provinces, generally have to shut to the general public whereas they course of the sacks of cash being deposited. “You'll be able to recognise the massive resellers by their vehicles,” sighs the farmer in Artemisa.
Taking advantage of garlic is nothing new. In 1986 Fidel Castro, then Cuba’s dictator, found that a garlic farmer was making $50,000 a yr—ten occasions an area surgeon’s wage on the time—by privately promoting what he had left over after assembly his quota for the state agriculture system. Outraged to see that folks had been behaving like “capitalists in disguise”, he closed the personal farmers’ markets the place it was bought.
However the pandemic has exacerbated shortages of primary items in Cuba, together with fertilisers, fungicide, seeds and provides for animals. 1000's of rabbits died final summer season in an outbreak of haemorrhagic illness. Pigs could also be subsequent; the nation is on excessive alert following an outbreak of African swine fever within the Dominican Republic. Final yr the federal government mooted consuming guinea pigs, a well-liked meals in elements of South America, however the thought was largely ridiculed. Then once more, Cubans can't reside by allium alone. ■
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