Cuban farmer Maritza Carpio, 62, is optimistic. Five months after Hurricane Ian wreaked havoc on the island nation and its vital tobacco industry, she has started drying leaves for habano cigars again.
Carpio, who inherited a 5.6 hectare farm from her parents, said she would never forget Sept. 27 last year, when Cuba’s west coast was battered for hours on end by the hurricane, with gusts of up to 208kph.
The Category 3 hurricane was particularly rough on the Vuelta Abajo region — described as Cuba’s tobacco triangle. Trees were uprooted, roofs blown off, fields flooded and tobacco drying houses collapsed.
Photo: AFP
Carpio is rebuilding hers, “stronger and more modern” this time, she said while overseeing workers installing roof panels on the wooden structure.
Drying houses, with their roofs of palm leaves or tin, allow tobacco leaves to brown gradually without losing their flexibility due to a perfect mix of temperature, humidity and airflow.
Planting is pointless if the leaves cannot be dried in optimal conditions directly after harvest.
“Once I was sure the drying house would be ready, I decided to plant,” Carpio said, showing off her plants now standing 1m tall.
Rolled tobacco is one of Cuba’s main exports, along with fisheries products, nickel and vaccines.
As Cuba battles its worst economic crisis in three decades, the government and state-owned company Tabacuba — which buys 95 percent of its crops from private producers — provided aid to farmers like Carpio in the form of donations of materials, and cheap loans.
A few kilometers from Carpio’s farm, 50-year-old Rafael Perez is adding the finishing touches to his own tobacco drying house, despite great obstacles finding materials. He planted 60,000 plants on his two-hectare property, and has started harvesting, but he was relatively lucky.
“Many neighbors have been unable to grow tobacco, because they do not have a drying house,” Perez said.
The remains of destroyed tobacco houses dot the landscape. On some farms, corn or beans have replaced tobacco. Other landowners gave up altogether.
“I used to be proud of growing tobacco. I like what I do. It was my family’s livelihood,” said Bisniel Benitez, 33, who went into tobacco farming four years ago.
However, Hurricane Ian lifted the roof off his drying house and ruined the turbine he and other farmers used for irrigation. A father of one, Benitez now works as a day laborer, having used the little savings he had to repair the damage to his home.
“To have worked so long for something that collapsed” in a few hours “makes you want to cry,” he said.
Producers say it is likely to take eight to 10 years for Pinar del Rio Province, which produces 65 percent of Cuban tobacco, to return to normal, but that is only if there is not another hurricane in a region frequently ravaged by tropical storms.
In 2021, Cuba exported cigars worth US$568 million, according to the most recent figures published by Habanos SA — a 15 percent increase from the year before, despite the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spain, China, Germany, France and Switzerland are the top buyers.
Next week, the 23rd edition of the Habano Festival opens in Havana after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. The festival is the world’s leading showcase for premium cigars. Cuba’s export figures for last year are to be released there.
Other commodities:
‧?Gold for April delivery fell US$9.70 to US$1,817.10 an ounce, down 1.79 percent weekly.
‧?Silver for March delivery fell US$0.50 to US$20.81 an ounce, posting a weekly decline of 4.19 percent.
‧?March copper fell US$0.11 to US$3.95 a pound, dropping 3.89 percent from a week earlier.
Additional reporting by AP
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,