PROSPECTS FOR THE 1963 CUBAN SUGAR CROP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00429A001100010030-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 13, 2006
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: January 25, 1963
• Content Type: MEMO

25x1,,
Approved For Release 2
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Current Intelligence
25 January 1963
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM[
SUBJECTo Prospects for the 1963 Cuban Sugar Crop
to From an analysis of a variety of available
information, including the public statements of
Castro regime leaders themselves, we estimate that
the 1963 Cuban sugar crop will amount to somewhat
less than last year?s poor crop of 408 million meta
ric tons> How much less Cuba will produce this year
depends on a number of variable factors, including
the weather, the number and efficiency of the sugar
workers involved, and the regime?s degree of success
in maintaining its largely worn-out sugar mill ma-
shiner in an o erational statuso
The islands normal hverage production in the pe-
riod 1957-1961 was about 6 million metric tones
20 Reasons for the expected short crop this
year include the diversion of former cane lands to
other uses in the last two or three years; the
failure of the regime to devote enough attention
t?~ new planting and fertilization in those years
the severe drought of 1962; and the damaging of
the cane by inexperienced cutters in the last two
harvestso Che Guevarag Carlos Rafael Rodriguez9
and Cuban sa~gar industry officials have admitted
that the regime has made serious mistakes in the
management of the sugar industryo The most serious
of these errars have been the de~emphasis of c~.ne
cultivation in the interests of agricultural diver-
sification and industrializationa and the regime?s
failure to eliminate agricultural disorganizatione
In recognition of these mistakesq intensive efforts
were begun as early as last summer to bring in a
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 ` Approved For Release ~
crop of at least 6.5 million tons in the 1964 sugar
seasan. This program is also behind schedule; last
year, according to a Cuban broadcast of 19 January,
the regime reached only 83.4 percent of its goal
for planting new cane ~i.e. cane which will mature
for the 1964 crop), Another question mark in both
this year's and next year's production is the degree
of success Cuba will achieve in its current efforts
to develop and use automatic cane cutting and load-
ing machinery.
3. This year's harvest is just beginning to
get well under way. t~nly 50 of Cuba's 152 oper-
ational sugar mi11s had begun grinding by 22 Jan-
uary, according to Radio Havana. Cuban officials
are already urging the populace to "
their services in the canefields.
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