In the region of Vuelta Abajo, in the province of Pinar del Rio (west), the hardest hit Tuesday by the passage of the hurricane, few dryers have resisted gusts of more than 200 km / h.
“We had never experienced a disaster of this magnitude,” Ms. Carpio told AFP on her farm in San Luis, 175 km west of Havana.
In the context of the deep economic crisis that the country is going through, the “situation is extremely difficult for all farmers (…) we don’t know how we are going to face this,” she sighs.
In addition to the winds that blew away the tobacco barns (wooden constructions with palm roofs that allow the leaves to get the right amount of sun and humidity), the torrential rains gullied the fields that the peasants were in preparing for October sowing.
“It’s a blow to the head, it will slow down the seed campaign,” adds Sergio Luis Martinez, 59, who also lost his dryer in Pinar del Rio.
Vuelta Abajo is the only region in the country where three types of leaves grow, allowing the production of the famous Havana cigars, a vital source of income for the island. In San Luis, “226 tons” of tobacco from the August harvest were damaged, according to local television.
In 2021, Cuba exported $568 million worth of cigars, up 15% from the previous year, according to Habanos S.A, which markets all Cuban brands.
The public company Tabacuba, which buys 95% of their harvest from private producers, was not spared: sorting centre, hangars and offices were damaged.
– “Fine Vega” –
The category 3 hurricane that hit the province of Pinar del Rio for six hours caused the death of two people and considerable damage. The authorities had preventively evacuated some 50,000 people.
It also severely damaged the power grid, knocking all of the island’s 11.2 million inhabitants into the dark. Two days later, power was still not restored in the west of the country.
Within hours, Ian ruined decades of work. On Maritza Carpio’s property, many trees have been uprooted, a young banana plantation devastated.
Here, “there was a bucolic air, you could say it’s beautiful, now everything is ugly”, laments the owner who hosts her neighbor Caridad Alvarez, 59, a farm worker whose house was destroyed.
The consequences are not only economic, there is also the sentimental cost. “It was an old farm, built of wood by my grandfather, maintained by my father who died in April at the age of 93,” says Ms. Carpio.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel visited Tuesday after the hurricane hit Pinar del Rio province, which produces 65% of the country’s tobacco. “The damage is significant, although we have not yet been able to assess it” with precision, he said.
Mrs. Carpio’s property has the “Vega fina” label, a certification necessary to grow tobacco which is then used to make cigars. This year, the harvest yielded 4.8 tonnes of wrapper leaves, carefully selected leaves to surround cigars.
The farmer knows that she will have to get her farm back on its feet in record time for sowing, but believes that it will be difficult without government support.
