Sugar Blues

The scene is a sunbathed sugar-cane field 18 miles south of Camagueey. The Prime Minister of the republic is wearing fatigue pants, gloves, a sweaty, long-sleeved shirt and a sloppy sombrero. He is perspiring copiously and his beard is dripping. He slashes right and left at the stalks with a shiny machete as a Cuban radio reporter approaches with microphone in hand:

Chop, chop. Thwack. Zing. Chonk.

Fidel Castro: "The ground's a little wet today, eh?" Puff, puff. "I have a new cutting technique." Whack. Zing. Chonk. "First the lower part and then the upper part." Chop. Chonk.

Interviewer: "Do you think we'll have a better harvest than the past year?"

Castro: "No, but I think we'll have a better average." Puff. Chop. Chonk. "Las Villas has about 500,000 tons less of cane than last year," chop, "and Oriente has 100,000 tons less." Chonk. "The only province that is the same as last year is Pinar del Rio, so the harvest will be just a bit over 5,000,000 tons."

In this unorthodox manner, Cubans last week got the bad news. At 5,000,000 tons, this year's sugar-cane harvest, on which Cuba depends almost exclusively for income, will be a full 1,000,000 tons under last year's crop and 1,500,000 tons less than Castro's earlier forecasts. Right now, Cuba can afford a small crop even less than usual. Some 60% of the harvest is pledged to the Soviet Union under a barter arrangement. The rest will have to compete in a glutted world market, where prices have tumbled 12-c- to 2-c- per Ib. in the last 30 months. To add to his sugar blues, Castro also faced a desperate shortage of skilled labor to help bring in the crop.

For weeks, Cuban billboards, radio and television trumpeted the need for volunteers, promising lavish vacations to champion choppers. "My dear," a husband chirruped to his wife on a Havana soap opera, "when I go to the cane field and really work for my country, all my aches and pains disappear." Every village, factory, business, union and government agency received a quota, and any Cuban who failed to heed the call risked losing his job. Out they came last week, 1,000,000 strong, nearly paralyzing by their absence every government agency and private business. In the swing with Castro were his little brother Raul, who heads up the armed forces, President Osvaldo Dorticos, Foreign Minister Raul Roa, and even Castro's constant companion Celia Sanchez. But it was Castro who set the pace. "Look how I do it," he instructed his interviewer. "I begin cutting from there to here, always protecting myself from the sun. My system is more rhythmic and more systematic." Chop. Thwack. Zing. Chonk.

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