HAVANA, Cuba, CMC – The Cuban government says it has seen a dramatic and unexplained drop in the harvest of vegetables and fruit in the first three months of the year.
In a report, the Cuban National Statistics Office (ONE) gave no reason for the production decline, despite government reforms to increase production in the Spanish-speaking country that spends more than US$1.5 billion on food imports.
ONE said overall agricultural production with the exception of sugarcane, declined by 7.8 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the first three months of 2012. Plantains dropped by 44.2 percent, potatoes by 36 percent ,citrus by 33.9 percent, “other tubers” plunged by 58.4 percent, corn production fell by 22.5 percent, beans by 7 percent and fruit by 13.9 percent.
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