The Cuban government will begin selling tractors to farmers in freely convertible currency, through MLC stores that will receive these equipment marketed by the Logistics Business Group of the Ministry of Agriculture (Gelma).
According to a note published in the official body Granma, about 2 thousand customers have visited and to establishments interested in this team and “628 purchases have been made, most of which belong to producers and only 17 to the business sector.”
The data is revealing who the actors are determined to invest in the Cuban agricultural sector. With only 2.7% of purchases made by the state sector, it is clear that it is small farmers and land tenants who are investing money to improve their productive capacity.
Farmers are not allowed to market their products in this currency, so the Ministry of Agriculture must consider whether this is the ideal way to empower Cuban field producers and to make prosperous agriculture ruined by the management of a state-owned economy.
In mid-October, the Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, announce that the government would begin selling to MLC inputs for agricultural production in the country.
“We will take the step with the equipment, tractors, little by little we will supply this market as far as we can make these sales. What mechanisms are we using for these sales? Basically, imported consignment goods,” said Gil Fernández .
The minister explained that the suppliers “put us in the country of the tractors we sell on consignment, and we pay him when we sell it. With the currency we get we pay the supplier and he puts more tractors and so we supply, through the consignment, without first having to make a capital disbursement or an advance “.
“Independent producers, associated with productive forms and state-owned companies will be able to purchase, through MLC stores in Cuba, tractors from Belarus and New Holland, from Belarus and Brazil, respectively,” Granma’s note said. What the media did not say, nor the state company Gelma, is the price of these tractors.
If the sale of this machinery follows the same commercial logic used by the opaque companies of the regime that has the monopoly of the import to Cuba, it is to suppose that the price of the tractors doubles or triples the one of his real market value. If the government is able to sell an all-terrain Kia Sportage for $ 50 thousand, When the market price of a model with all the extras is about $ 25 thousand, it should be feared that the prices of tractors follow the same logic.
In the hypothetical case that this is the case, a New Holland TT4.75 tractor (to put a model that Gelma announces will be marketed), which in the international market is around $ 50 thousand, may cost about $ 100,000 in Cuba. It is likely that the tractor for sale has hours of use, which would make its price lower in a free market, but in the case of the Cuban marketing company if the price of its tractor were to double or tripling that of the market, will be to blame for the “resurgence of the blockade.”
In the unlikely event that the official exchange rate is maintained and the Cuban authorities allow the purchase of foreign currency, those Cuban farmers and agricultural producers who are interested in buying a tractor should raise 2 million, 400 thousand pesos to buy it.
“Independent producers interested in these equipment, must deliver the documentation that accredits them as a producer and for land tenure,” clarifies the company Gelma. The note published by the official organ of the Cuban Communist Party, without any shame, reports that “the modality of trade in MLC has been an opportunity that, since September 10 last year, Gelma has taken advantage, on behalf of to seek alternatives to the difficulties caused by the resurgence of the blockade “.
In this way, the Ministry of Agriculture provides for the “marketing of 32 new national production lines, such as multilayer sacks for coal, tray for eggs, boots, vinyl paints, gloves, jute sacks, wagons, multiarados, flat files , plastic buckets, multipurpose boxes and sanitation products “, according to Granma.
The note ends by celebrating that, with this initiative to sell “new stripes” in MLC to independent farmers, “nearly $ 300,000 has been raised.” Liberalizing productive forces capable of creating wealth in the country will be a complicated process to assimilate for those who claim to “raise” for profits.
In the current conditions of the Cuban economy and society, pretending that prosperity comes from the work of poorly paid producers abused by abusive prices is further evidence of how disoriented the elitist mentality of the regime’s leaders, who only seem worried about capturing currency no matter what else.
“These are things that are incipient. It is a first step and we have already opened in three provinces with a group of products and we are expanding this possibility that did not exist before,” said Minister Gil Fernández last October. “In this context, it is necessary to take such bold measures, which do not mean dollarizing the country for nothing, but it is necessary to look for certain productive circuits that work independently of the allocation of central funding,” he said.