Droughts and rising seas put Cuba’s agriculture under threat

Agricultural workers clearing weeds from a Malanga plantation in Batabano, Cuba, on Oct 25. The rainy season, already an obstacle to Cuban agricultural production, has gotten longer and wetter. Photos: AP

Yordan Diaz Gonzales pulled weeds from his fields with a tractor until Cuba’s summer rainy season turned them into foot-deep red mud.

Now it takes five farmhands to tend to Diaz’s crop. That shrinks Diaz’s profit margin and lowers Cuba‘s agricultural productivity, already burdened by a US embargo and an unproductive state-controlled economy.