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CUBA:
Food Aid for
Victims of Worst Drought Since
1901
Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, (IPS) - The World Food
Programme (WFP) has launched an
emergency food aid operation for
773,000 people affected by the
ongoing drought in Cuba, WFP
representative Rosa Inés Antolín
told IPS.
The operation, which will
involve a total of 3.7 million
dollars in assistance for three
months, could go into effect in
July, Antolín noted.
The WFP will also be counting on
support from donors, including
the European Union (EU), Canada
and Japan, to provide aid over
subsequent months, she added.
The food aid operation will be
carried out in coordination with
the Cuban Ministry of Foreign
Investment and Economic
Cooperation (MINVEC) and the
United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF).
”This project will complement
the efforts undertaken by the
government, which has already
allotted extra food rations to
the most vulnerable families in
eastern Cuba,” the region
hardest hit by the drought, said
Antolín.
The current drought began in
2003 and is one of the worst in
Cuba's history, leading to food
shortages in the eastern
provinces of Guantánamo, Granma,
Santiago de Cuba, Las Tunas and
Holguín, and the central
province of Camagüey, 500 km
east of Havana.
The WFP food aid operation will
specifically target children
under five years of age,
pregnant women and the elderly,
who will be provided with beans,
rice and cooking oil.
The project will also encompass
the distribution of containers
to store the water that the
government supplies to thousands
of families with tanker trucks.
The inadequate rainfall has
severely affected the
cultivation of basic crops and
stockbreeding, with serious
repercussions on the
availability of food in the
entire eastern portion of this
Caribbean island nation of 11.2
million.
The annual rainy season, which
began in May, could benefit the
large collective urban vegetable
gardens. ”Nevertheless, a lot of
families lost their crops or
were unable to plant because
there was no water for
irrigation. The population is
now facing an especially
difficult period, because there
is no harvest this year,”
explained Antolín.
The WFP predicts that food
insecurity will be particularly
acute during the next few summer
months, because of the losses
suffered in the crops normally
harvested in May.
The drought has left one out of
every six Cubans without access
to drinking water, which is why
the Cuban government has adopted
a series of measures to ensure
the supply of water to the
entire population, the WPF
reported in a press release.
Cuban experts, who forecast that
the lack of precipitation will
continue, say this drought is
the worst the country has seen
since 1901, and note that the
limited rainfall registered in
May and June was not enough to
notably improve the availability
of water.
The country has 241 dams and
reservoirs, with a total
combined capacity of almost 8.8
billion cubic metres. Today,
roughly half of them have fallen
below their useful storage
capacity, while 17 percent
cannot be used because the water
volume has reached the so-called
”dead storage” level.
The heavy showers that fell in
recent weeks brought some relief
to several eastern provinces,
but not enough to make a
significant impact.
In Santiago de Cuba, over 800 km
east of Havana, the recent
precipitation raised the level
of the province's reservoirs
from 27 to 36 percent of their
total capacity, which meant that
more water could be distributed
to the population.
An estimated 1.4 million people
currently rely on tanker trucks
for access to water,
particularly in the provinces of
Camagüey, Las Tunas and Holguín.
Because of this, the new WPF
project will include the supply
of replacement parts for these
trucks, some of which are in
extremely poor condition, said
Antolín.
Between June and November 2004,
the agency provided emergency
food aid to 140,000 children
under five years of age in the
eastern provinces most severely
affected by the drought, namely
Las Tunas, Holguín and Camagüey.
In 2004, the government of
socialist President Fidel Castro
invested almost 20 million
dollars in hydraulic
infrastructure projects, aimed
at seeking long-term solutions
to a problem that could grow
even worse in the future.
According to official estimates,
the losses caused by the drought
in 2004 totalled 835 million
dollars, which represents 2.5
percent of gross domestic
product (GDP).
Figures from the National Water
Resources Institute and the
Ministry of Science, Technology
and the Environment indicate
that before the current
prolonged drought, Cuba had a
water availability level of
1,204 cubic metres per capita,
placing it among the countries
classified as facing ”water
stress”.
According to the U.N. Food and
Agricultural Organisation, water
is regarded as a potentially
serious constraint, and a major
problem in drought years, at
levels of water availability
less than 2000 cubic metres per
capita.
The provinces suffering the most
critical water stress are
Holguín and Las Tunas, with
water availability levels of 505
and 613 cubic metres per capita
respectively, followed by
Santiago de Cuba, with 665, and
Guantánamo, located in the
easternmost tip of Cuba, with
677 cubic metres per capita.
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