Lázaro Raúl González, CPI
HERRADURA, Pinar del Río, March - The life of a seed in Cuba today is hard. To drought, plagues and fungi, we would have to add the damages caused by loose livestock.
According to the best figures we have, 15% of all crops planted are destroyed at some point by horses, cows, pigs, goats or chickens which invade the unfenced plots. It is hard indeed to take leave in the afternoon of the green rows where you have invested three months of your life only to find
them in the morning turned upside down by your neighbor's three sows and 27 piglets.
Some neighbors lose their animals overnight by accident, some are careless. Some turn them loose on purpose so they can forage and return home in the morning. There are laws, but no one to enforce them. Unless the victim is a State enterprise, nothing much is going to come off it. The thing gets
even more complicated if the animals of a State enterprise cause damage to a small landholder. There are documented cases of a herd of cows from a State coop invading a small farm and going through 100 hundredweight of rice in a matter of minutes. This type of claim is very hard to bring. Generally
the affected parties are dissuaded from pressing it. It would be wasting your time, they are told.
In the end, the damage caused by others' animals is another factor reducing the yield of the agricultural sector and another link in the chain that must be dragged by the not unreasonably grim peasants.
* The author can attest to the dismay provoked by losing two plots of sweet potato, two of corn and one of beans.
Mr. González is a farmer and a journalist in the small town of Herradura in Cuba's westernmost province of Pinar del Río.
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