By Jay Amberg Bloomberg Lifestyles. 29 Jan 2001, 9:49am
EST. Bloomberg.com
Havana, Jan. 25 -- It's make or break time for this year's tobacco harvest
in Cuba's prime cigar leaf producing regions of the Vuelta Abajo, Semi-Vuelta,
Partido, Remedios and Oriente.
The question being asked by a lot of Cuban cigar smokers has to do with the
weather and if recent winter rains and falling temperatures could adversely
affect the upcoming harvest.
"If you are involved in the business of cigars, then the harvest is the
million dollar question right now,'' said a Havana businessman with ties to the
tobacco industry who requested anonymity. "Information on this year's crop
has been scarce, so I guess I'll have to drive out to Pinar del Rio and find
out.''
Recent weather conditions in Cuba have been a concern because 2000 cigar
production in Cuba tumbled due to shortages of wrapper and ligero leaves,
attributed to drought, disease, mechanical failures and theft.
While official government figures haven't yet been released, Cuba's 2000
cigar production was expected to tumble by about 15 percent, although some
government officials said actual production would be 100 million-130 million
cigars, compared with about 150 million the prior year.
Thus far Cuba's winter has been anything but normal. Heavy rains in the last
half of December and early January coupled with below average temperatures has
given rise to concerns that the dampness and cold could limit Cuba's cigar
tobacco production for the second consecutive year.
"It's all just speculation right now, these stories about the weather
and the harvest,'' the businessman said. "Our new tobacco plants are
supposed to be much more resistant to diseases that are caused by wetness.''
In the late 1990s, Cuba's tobacco farmers switched production from the older
and more disease prone Corojo tobacco plant to the new hybrid Habana 2000
(H2000).
The latter plant was genetically engineered to be more resistant to disease
like blue mold, a fungus that scars tobacco leaves, making them useless for
manufacturing cigars.
Blue mold, which thrives in cool and wet conditions, attacks entire crops of
tobacco, forcing farmers to plow under fields and lose any entire year's work.
A Cuban friend I contacted in Havana yesterday had this to say about the
weather: "It's been variable as usual. Sometimes it's warm and sometimes it
gets cooler. I don't think the recent weather has been unusual except for the
intense rain we had in the end of December when a rare winter tropical system
moved across the island.''
It was only months ago that Cuban tobacco officials were bemoaning the
island's year long drought, its worst in a decade, causing extensive losses to
fruit and tobacco crops as well as livestock.
This week, morning temperatures in Havana tumbled to about 46- 48 Fahrenheit
(7-9 Celsius) but Weather Services Corp. in Lexington, Massachusetts, predicts
morning lows will jump into the 60s by Sunday.
Along with rising temperatures, scattered showers and partly cloudy skies
are forecast from Havana to Pinar del Rio in the southwest corner of the island.
Unlike Cuba, the weather in the Dominican Republic, the largest cigar
manufacturing center in the Caribbean, has been extremely dry and good for
tobacco plants.
Because of an abundance of tobacco inventories, acreage planted for this
year's harvest tumbled to about 2,000 acres, down from 50,000 acres in 1997-98,
based on figures from Cigar Aficionado magazine.
©2001 Bloomberg L.P. | 