May 18, 2005
Conference of empty rice cookers
Sometimes castro makes it too darn easy. His minions at Havana's Rice Research Institute are organizing a rice conference to discuss all the new developments in rice-growing technology. So for all those waiting rice cookers, castro has a talkfest to fill them with.
After all, with a drought on, Cuba has very little rice. Actually, even without a drought on, Cuba has very little rice. But castro insists it's definitely drought.
The current drought in Cuba, like the U.S. trade embargo, makes a convenient excuse for the castroites to explain to Cubans why there somehow isn't any rice for their castro-bestowed benevolent cookers.
So this year, the topic of conference discussion will be new technologies for improving rice yield without water. Naturally, the harvest of knowledge will come not from castro's "highly educated" Cuban rice experts. For some unexplained reason all of the innovations in rice technology seem to come from the big boys, the rice exporters of East Asia.
I googled around and found a Granma article about last year's rice conference. Quoting castro's rice man, Granma noted that Vietnam produced 5.7 tons of rice per hectare, compared to Cuba's 3.4 tons per hectare.
The Granma hack cited Vietnam's awesome technology.
Yeah right. I'll tell you what Vietnam's awesome technology is: back in about 1988, Vietnam's party bureaucrats were on their last legs. Their people were starving, they were importing bad rice from Thailand, rats were eating what little crop they had because they weren't in any shape to buy pest control devices, their population was booming and they knew it was only a matter of time before they were thrown out of power. They saw their Red Chinese neighbors up north getting rich from Deng Xiaoping's reforms. They saw how rich their Thai and Malay neighbors were getting off their rice exports from capitalism. Only they were poised for the dustbin of history, everyone else was doing fine. They had to do something quick.
Of course not being capitalist, they didn't have any capital, nothing to pay for technological improvements. So for technology, they had to let Vietnam's farmers own their crop. Own it. Control it. Make decisions about it. Keep its profits. That meant breaking up the collective farms. That was what they had for harvest-improvement technology. That, and only that! Being communists, they had to swallow hard.
In one year, in one stinking year, Vietnam went from net importer of rice to net exporter of rice! Today, it ranks number two in rice exports in the world. In 2005, it will break the $1 billion mark for its rice export earnings. Vietnam is an oppressed country and communists still rule it. But they are not fools. And the one little 'technological' change they made of allowing their farmers to own their crop amazingly ended their problems almost overnight. castro still hasn't caught on to this "technology" lesson.
Any time people are not rewarded for their labors, but forced to deliver like Medieval serfs to some overlord, there won't be rice for anyone.
That's what Vietnam can teach castro's bureaucrats who are so intent on discussing 'technology' for improving rice yield. Vietnam's got rice 'technology,' for castro all right, free of charge, right there for the taking.
Posted by Mora at May 18, 2005 02:46 PM
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Comments
and cagastro will break the one billion dollar mark on his own to... in his case, of stolen monies!
Posted by: CB at May 18, 2005 08:20 PM
I'm amazed Cuba grows any rice at all. Obviously not a capitalist idea there - a capitalist would say what can we grow better than anybody else? Sure, you *can* grow pineapples in Alaska but it isn't worth the effort. Cuba might have the rain but does it have enough lowlands? Or do they build terraces like in Korea? Why not just grow something more suitable?
Whatever they grow, they can always trade to those weasels in europe (of course that's probably where most of everything, including the Venezualan oil is going to - castro can't deposit tons of wheat or oil into his Swiss bank account).
Posted by: Jay at May 19, 2005 03:17 AM
Good point, Jay - they would be better off growing something that grows easily there and buy their rice from the Vietnamese. That said, don't South Carolina and Texas have rice farms? Cuba's climate, although pretty dry, might not be much different. The other thing is, rice is a Cuban dietary staple from the old days. Obviously, someone was able to grow rice back in the old days for nice hot dishes of moros y cristos.
What do other people here know?
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at May 19, 2005 10:56 AM
Brilliant post, I had no idea that Vietnam had disrupted the collectives. It's just common sense of course, except to Castro.
Posted by: j.scott at May 19, 2005 01:55 PM
Thanks, Scott! Yeah, it happened. Never has a faster turnaround happened for such a simple little change. Funny how it happens that way! No startup costs, no investment, no overhead - just taking the government's greedy hand off the neck of the productive people. It is nothing short of amazing. And something castro is completely opaque to.
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at May 19, 2005 07:45 PM
