Emmanuelle Young explores the intricacies around access to food in Cuba.
On the 18th of December, 2024, the Cuban prime minister announced the decision to put an end to the libreta de abastecimiento (provisioning booklet), a monthly ration system introduced in Cuba in 1962 which serves to provide its citizens with a basket of basic goods at highly subsidized prices. Despite being subject to countless fluctuations, and today providing Cubans with minimal quantities of food, the subsidized prices of the ration system have been historically significant in facilitating access to food for Cubans since its implementation. Although little is known about how or when exactly the ration system will come to an end, the announcement came at a particularly sensitive time in Cuba.
Cuba has been experiencing its worst economic crisis since the 1990s when the collapse of the Soviet Union led to, amongst other things, a drastic drop in agricultural input and food imports. Today, the culmination of a continued and worsening US embargo, diminishing oil supplies, lasting impacts from the COVID pandemic and subsequent drop in tourism have pushed the island’s economy to the brink of collapse. On top of this, the unification of the two national currencies in 2021 as part of a series of internal reforms has since led to the devaluation of the Cuban peso. Since 2020, the impacts of the economic crisis on provisioning processes on the island have been palpable. The country has seen falling wages, the deterioration of once celebrated public services, consistent power outages, and drastic food shortages. For many Cubans, a growing sense of lack of economic opportunity and political freedom is taking them abroad. In between 2021 and 2023, more than 400,000 Cubans emigrated to the US, corresponding to around 4% of the country’s population.
For those who remain on the island, day-to-day life is challenging. Many authors and researchers have noted the words resolver (to resolve), inventar (to invent), and luchar (to struggle or battle) as pivotal in Cuban vernacular, often referring to the countless ways Cubans overcome scarcity as well as rising prices, among other challenges. Generally speaking, for many Cubans “to resolve” is to depend on informal sources of income, remittances, as well as intricate webs of social networks to guarantee access to food and other basic needs. In 2008, Cuban author Leonardo Padura wrote that “to resolve” is in fact the “art of living” in Cuba. On the other hand, inventos cubanos (Cuban inventions) can range from creative mechanical solutions to replace missing car parts, to making dessert (boniatillo) out of a type of sweet potato historically used as animal feed. All of this combined makes up the “struggle” that is daily existence in Cuba (see also the thesis of Belyea, S. E. (2018). "No es facil” / It’s not easy: Neoliberalism, precarity, and food insecurity in Kingston, Ontario and Havana, Cuba. Queen’s University).
"Inventos cubanos (Cuban inventions) can range from creative mechanical solutions to replace missing car parts, to making dessert (boniatillo) out of a type of sweet potato historically used as animal feed."
In September of 2024, I spent about a month in Havana trying to understand the Cuban food provisioning system amid the current crisis conditions. Unsurprisingly, everyone I spoke to while I was there told me the same thing: “es complicado” (it’s complicated). Although the state-subsidized sector is by far the cheapest place to acquire goods, with the country in crisis, Cubans are increasingly facing endless queues and empty shelves. This leaves them to navigate a complex food distribution system consisting of unsubsidized state-outlets, a growing private sector, and informal avenues such as the black market, bartering or remittances in-kind. The problem is, these other avenues are often inaccessible, whether because they’re expensive or require someone to have family members abroad. The unsubsidized state-outlets, for instance, sell imported goods in “MLC”, a virtual currency requiring people to have access to foreign currencies, which many do not have. On the other hand, the introduction of small and medium enterprises in Cuba in 2021 has created a booming private sector. While the state is struggling to secure necessary foreign currency reserves to import food, the private sector seems to be having an easier time. Generally, people attribute this to their ability to depend on networks of friends and family living abroad with foreign bank accounts. As such, the private sector is increasingly taking on an important role as a key distributor of food and other goods, but at a high price.
"With a carton of thirty eggs costing at least 3,000 pesos in the private sector in Havana, or 8.8 US dollars, how exactly the average Cuban manages to put food on the table is an increasingly complicated question."
According to official data, in 2024 Cubans were spending more than 70 per cent of their income on food. Although the average state salary is expected to increase to 6,276 Cuban pesos in 2025, it is worth little with the devaluation of the peso. According to official exchange rates, this average salary would be equivalent to 52.3 US dollars. In contrast, today’s informal exchange rate (set by the website El Toque) brings the true value of the salary down to only 18.5 US dollars. As for pensioners, I met an 85-year-old woman depending on a state pension of only 1,500 pesos, or 4.4 US dollars according to the informal exchange rate. With a carton of thirty eggs costing at least 3,000 pesos in the private sector in Havana, or 8.8 US dollars, how exactly the average Cuban manages to put food on the table is an increasingly complicated question.
Everyone I spoke to who was still employed by the state, or receiving a pension from the state, had access to some kind of formal or informal secondary income to complement their salaries. For example, I met a musician employed in a state-orchestra who earns money on the side giving privately funded music lessons paid in dollars. Others rely on more informal ways of earning additional income and/or gaining direct access to food. A young man I spoke to in Havana told me about how he worked in the ports as part of his mandatory military service. When food imports would arrive at the port, he used to steal some to bring home to his family and sell the rest. Although supplies in the state-subsidized sector are dwindling, I also met a retired journalist in his 80s who trades or resells his allocated rations of cigarettes and coffee, when they come in, to make up for his minimal pension.
Although income is essential to facilitate access to food, this is often dependent on or closely related to social networks. As is common around the world, many people rely on remittances from family or friends living abroad, whether that be monetary remittances or remittances in-kind. On the island, because one never has the guarantee of stepping out and finding what one needs, food and other goods are also often redistributed or traded amongst friends, family members, or acquaintances. In some cases, redistribution is dependent on one’s employment. For instance, it is common in Cuba for doctors to receive gifts from patients wishing to express gratitude for treatments and a general respect for their hard work despite difficult working conditions. A doctor I spoke to, although never having asked for anything, almost always receives something from her patients, whether it be food, soap, or paper. Of course, such exchanges don’t always consist of what she needs, but are always useful to her in one way or another. For example, she trades extra soap for onions with the man who sells produce on her block. As a single mom, these gifts are essential to covering her family’s basic needs. Sometimes, when a patient has nothing to offer materially, they promise favours instead, like fixing shoes, a ride home, or cutting queues. With the endless search for food and other goods taking time and effort, as well as money, redistribution is about more than the material. Essentially, Cubans rely on connections and mutual aid, in whatever shape or form, to get by.
"For many, to “resolve” persistent difficulties in the face of rising prices ultimately means leaving state-employments altogether in the pursuit of opportunities in the private sector where the pay is better."
For many, to “resolve” persistent difficulties in the face of rising prices ultimately means leaving state-employments altogether in the pursuit of opportunities in the private sector where the pay is better, often finding work in bars, restaurants or as taxi drivers. A biologist I spoke to used to work at a research centre but found himself spending more money going to and from work in a month than he was being paid. After that, he decided to work in the private sector in a tourism-related recreational centre. With a job in the private sector, in a single day he can make the same amount of money he earned in a month working for the state. Ever since he made the switch, buying food in the private sector became a possibility for him. Today, small and medium enterprises can employ up to 100 people leaving key sectors like healthcare and education increasingly short-staffed. Unfortunately, state salaries just don’t compare, despite multiple salary raises for doctors and teachers. In 2023, the private sector employed more than a third of the country’s workforce. Today, the private sector is playing a growing role in the Cuban economy in providing goods and employment. However, crumbling public infrastructures and insufficient wages in the state-sector coupled with rising prices in the private sector are giving rise to inequalities. With the creation of a private business requiring capital, most are opened by people with family members abroad, or as rumour has it: those with connections to the government.
Difficulties in accessing food in Cuba are not necessarily new. While healthcare and education were key successes of the Revolutionary project, a popular joke about food in Cuba goes as follows: “There are three major failures of the revolution: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Although low malnutrition levels in Cuba have been celebrated by organizations like the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme, food security indicators typically fail to reflect how access to food is a persistent point of concern for Cubans. Despite continuous efforts to establish a sovereign food system and move away from import-dependency, food production in Cuba remains low. As infrastructures across the country fall apart, and the private sector continues to fill the gaps left behind by the state, the Cuban economy is changing drastically. To continuously “resolve”, “invent” and “struggle” in the face of adversity is a testament to the resilience of the Cuban people.
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