HAVANA, March 3 (Graciela Alfonso, independent journalist) - The UBPC, Basic Units of Cooperative Production, were founded in 1993 and should have been part of the solution to the lack of produce stemming from the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
After five years in operation, the main objective of 59.7% of the existing UBPC is to break even. Their achievements, called outstanding by the official media, are questionable when it is learned that in 1999 they sustained losses of 200 million pesos.
Neither has the market seen an increase in production, when the basic allocation by the rationing system has not increased beyond the usual potatoes, tomatoes and some plantains.
Spurred to action by the emergence of an independent peasant movement, the government decided to implement a program called strenghtening the farming sector which involves the Credit and Service Cooperatives. To achieve this new goal, the Cooperatives must put in place a new organizational
structure, consisting of a president, an economic director and administrative assistants.
The increase in administrative personel with no attendant increase in production is presumed to be the reason why the Cooperatives have had to raise prices, to the detriment of the consumers purchasing power.
A survey of the so-called Agricultural Markets in Havana revealed the following prices:
Sweet potato - 1.50 lb.
Yuca - 1.20 lb.
Squash - 2.50 lb.
Malanga - 5.00 lb.
Beans - 9.00 lb.
Pork - 23.00 lb.
Mutton - 25.00 lb.
Considering these prices it becomes evident that although some collective production enterprises become profitable, they are not doing so by reducing costs and increasing productivity.
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