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Ciego de Ávila plants tobacco on sugar-cane land and says more than 1,500 workers are back on the job
The Communist Party's first secretary in Ciego de Ávila, Julio Gómez Casanova, announced on Facebook that land traditionally given over to sugar cane is now being planted with tobacco, and that this put more than 1,500 idled workers back on the job, according to Granma.
“The tightening of the embargo and the economic strangulation imposed on Cuba by the US force us to look for alternatives and diversify. That is why land traditionally given over to growing cane is today being planted with tobacco,” Gómez Casanova wrote on his Facebook profile, in a text picked up by the official daily Granma. The official added that the shift “does not mean goodbye to cane, but a strategy to inject resources, strengthen the cane units and recover the sugar sector once the conditions are in place.”
According to the first secretary, the decision has provided work for more than 1,500 workers who had been idled and brought unproductive land back into use. He cites as key the repair of broken irrigation machinery and the use of disused warehouses for curing tobacco, which brings income to the entities that run them.
In the municipality of Baraguá some 300 hectares are due to be planted. Granma notes that the municipality planted 8 hectares in 2024 and will pass 400 this year. Once the tobacco season ends, mung beans will be sown, both for sale to the public and to improve the soil.
The official daily presents these moves as part of the government's Economic and Social Transformations package, and describes them as proof that “the people of Ciego de Ávila endure, reinvent themselves and keep producing.”
Sources: Granma
Data updated: 2026-11-08T16:15:00.000Z