Rice is in the news.
The price of rice is skyrocketing in world markets, creating a panic.
So, Raúl Castro in another example of his now famous pragmatism, has decided to re-think Cuba’s rice importing policy and shift to domestically grown supplies. One can imagine his older half brother ordering the Cuban people to re-sist rather than re-think and ordering them not to ever consume any of that “white capitalist grain that the Empire is using as a weapon to bring the brave and glorious people of Cuba to their knees” or some nonsense like that and they would get the short end of the stick and go hungry.
According to this article, before the USSR imploded, Cuba use to produce up to 260,000 tons of consumable rice.
BUT….
That means Fidel got involved.
Cuba has been importing about 500,000 tons a year from Viet Nam.
So now while the re-thinking, re-planting, re-structuring goes on, the Cuban people are about 500,000 tons short of the Cuban staple and have no rice to put in the new electric rice cookers that they are now allowed to purchase. In other words, Cubans will re-get (and regret) the short end of the stick and go re-hungry. A more pragmatic re-hunger courtesy of Re-Castro.
The price of rice is skyrocketing in world markets, creating a panic.
So, Raúl Castro in another example of his now famous pragmatism, has decided to re-think Cuba’s rice importing policy and shift to domestically grown supplies. One can imagine his older half brother ordering the Cuban people to re-sist rather than re-think and ordering them not to ever consume any of that “white capitalist grain that the Empire is using as a weapon to bring the brave and glorious people of Cuba to their knees” or some nonsense like that and they would get the short end of the stick and go hungry.
According to this article, before the USSR imploded, Cuba use to produce up to 260,000 tons of consumable rice.
BUT….
Decapitalization, plague and drought followed.
That means Fidel got involved.
Cuba has been importing about 500,000 tons a year from Viet Nam.
So now while the re-thinking, re-planting, re-structuring goes on, the Cuban people are about 500,000 tons short of the Cuban staple and have no rice to put in the new electric rice cookers that they are now allowed to purchase. In other words, Cubans will re-get (and regret) the short end of the stick and go re-hungry. A more pragmatic re-hunger courtesy of Re-Castro.
1 comment:
Now they'll probably tell the Cuban people that "rice is bad for their health". That's what they did in good old Soviet Union (were I had the misfortune of being born) - when butter was in short supply, we were told that butter was bad for us; when women could not buy lipstick (yes, lipstick!), they were told that lipstick could cause cancer... I could continue ad nauseam, but you got the picture.
Excellent blog.
Respetuosamente,
Dusty Rose
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