US embargo leaves Cuban farmers waiting for modernity

US embargo leaves Cuban farmers waiting for modernity

By Will Grant
Cuba correspondent, BBC News


3 hours ago

Nowhere in Cuba are the effects of the continuing US economic embargo more apparent than the countryside, where farming cooperatives rely on outdated tools and processing plants can't obtain spare parts, Will Grant reports.

Cubans are renowned for their sweet tooth.

This is hardly surprising on an island famed for its sugarcane and abundant in tropical fruits. And few of those fruits are more popular in Cuba than the guava.

Whether filling their favourite sugary treat - guava pastries - or turned into jams and preserves, Cubans consume tens of thousands of tonnes of guava every year.

Said by generations of Cuban grandmothers to have curative and digestive qualities, guavas thrive in the perfect balance of heat and rain found in Mayabeque province, outside Havana.

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