By Jay Amberg Bloomberg Lifestyles. Wed, 13 Sep 2000, 10:48am EDT
Santiago, Dominican Republic, Sept. 13 -- Benjamin F. Menendez is no weatherman but he knows a little about the weather.
He has to because for the past few years he's watched over the production of Dominican manufactured Romeo y Julieta cigars, one of the most popular non-Cuban brands in the world today.
"It's been a very dry summer in the central Caribbean and right now we could use some rain. Things are looking very dry,'' Menendez said. "I don't mean rain like the torrents from a hurricane, but a good steady rain couldn't hurt things.''
Menendez, who was the director of Central American and Caribbean tobacco operations for Spain's Tabacalera SA (now Altadis SA), said the last significant rain was in August when what was left of Hurricane Debby briefly brushed by the island of Hispaniola.
"At this time of year, most of our significant rain is usually associated with hurricanes or tropical storms and our day- to-day precipitation comes from frequent thunderstorms,'' Menendez said. "Right now, we haven't even had many thunderstorms to ease the dry conditions.''
Menendez, a Cuban by birth, is a member of the Havana family who produced Montecristo and H. Upmann cigars in Cuba, until their property was seized after the 1959 revolution.
He said a good soaking rain right now would help loosen the soil for tobacco planting in the Dominican Republic next month.
"We'll see a smaller crop (cigar tobacco) planted for the second consecutive year, but that will have nothing to do with the lack of rain,'' Menendez said. "Right now there's a lot of inventory (tobacco) in warehouses so there's no need for a bumper crop.''
While Menendez is careful not to call the situation in the Dominican Republic a drought, he said the lack of rain in eastern Cuba is worrisome, not only for crops but people, too.
"Let's face it, we frequently depend on hurricanes and tropical storms to bring rain to the larger Caribbean islands (Hispaniola, Cuba and Jamaica) in the late summer and fall, especially if the rainy season has been dry like this year,'' Menendez said.
Since winter, Cuba's eastern provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Granma, Las Tunas and Holguin have been battling a drought that has destroyed tobacco, banana and coffee crops and killed thousands of head of cattle and other livestock.
Although the remnants Hurricane Debby dropped some much needed rain on eastern Cuba, both Granma, Cuba's state newspaper, and Radio Havana reported that what fell wasn't enough to break the drought.
Even in Havana it's been dry, compared with a typical September when afternoon downpours usually bring some much-needed relief to the city.
Only 62 percent of the normal rainfall was recorded in May- July, usually the rainy season, according to Cuba's National Institute of Hydraulic Resources.
To date, Cuban tobacco crops affected by the drought are used mostly in the manufacture of cigarettes and cheap cigars for domestic consumption, but that could soon change.
The main tobacco-growing region of southwest Cuba in Pinar del Rio, while dry, hasn't seen the loss of crops reported in eastern Cuba, though framers here predict if no rain falls in the coming months even the prestigious cigar leaf crop could be in peril.
Pinar del Rio's reservoir levels have fallen to 33 percent of capacity, which doesn't bode well for this winter's cigar tobacco crop, especially on farms where there are no irrigation systems.
In Pinar del Rio, the tobacco grown for cigar manufacturing is planted in late fall with harvesting in February, compared with lesser quality tobacco grown through the summer months.
"It's getting to the point where the central and western provinces could use a lot of rain, too,'' said Alberto Sanchez, a licensed tour guide who ferries visiting cigar aficionados between Havana and various tobacco plantations in Pinar del Rio.
"It's been an unusually dry summer and I hope that doesn't mean we'll get a lot of rain during the peak tourist months of December through March,'' he said.
According to Granma, water levels in the island's total reservoir system (223 installations) are only at 38 percent of capacity and falling daily as no significant rain is forecast.
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