The U.N. Environmental Programme (UNEP) recently highlighted some appalling figures pertaining to issues of food waste in a somewhat unexpected and innovative manner. The UNEP’s 2013 theme for World Environment Day on June 5, “Think.East.Save,” reports the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization’s (FAO) data concluding 1.3 billion tons of food, or the equivalent of all […]
In a previous post, we mentioned Raúl Castro’s April 4 speech to the Youth Communist League (UJC) in Cuba, focusing on its discussion of regime continuity in the coming years. But the speech merits revisiting in order to zero in on another topic: economic reform. Raúl’s discussion covered a number of familiar topics—the moral imperative […]
Completely unrelated to U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations (or lack thereof), Cuban imports of U.S. agricultural products—exempted from the 48-year embargo since the year 2000—declined by 26 percent last year, from a peak of $710 million in 2008 to $528 million in 2009. The United States remains the largest seller of food to Cuba. American analysts judge […]