Chicken for fishing
Despite being an island, fish is quite scarce in Cuba today. But it wasn't always like this. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, fishing was abundant and came mainly from the Cuban coast itself, but there were also boats that fished in the Yucatan or Florida.
The most popular species were snapper and grouper, sea bream and bonito, cod and marlin.
There were also shellfish, among which lobsters and shrimps stood out.
Even for special dinners like Christmas Eve, December 24, it is said that many wealthy families preferred to cook the snapper in the oven.
Cuba's fish shortage became visible in the 1990s, when the now-defunct Ministry of Fisheries canceled its fishing contracts in foreign waters and sold off much of its fleet for fear of losing it, rusting on the docks.
However, various sources also locate the origin of the current crisis in the overexploitation that the Cuban state made of the Cuban island platform between the 1960s and 1980s.
The impact was immediate. Platform fishing has reduced its catches by 70 percent over the past few decades.
Cuba also places overheating and salinization of the waters as causes of the crisis, in addition to illegal fishing, which is not always done with the appropriate means.
In fact, fishermen who know the sea and the local coasts consider that the environmental degradation of the island platform has meant that there are no longer large schools of fish in the Cuban seas.
The sustainability of these rare species stocks in our waters would not currently guarantee the volumes or permanence necessary to provide fish to more than 11 million Cubans.
Thus, the average annual fish consumption per capita in Cuba is barely around 4 kg. However, this value may not really reflect the lack of fish. If the concept of "chicken for fish" were taken into account in this per capita, the real figure could be much lower, perhaps close to zero.
Chicken for fish was a measure taken by the Cuban state between 1990 and 2017, which replaced the 6 ounces of fish allocated, once or twice a month, to each Cuban, through the ration book, with 6 ounces of chicken.
Chicken for fish has quickly become a cultural element of our own identity, the object of countless sarcastic criticisms to the point of mocking it in the most authentic Creole style.
Faced with this situation, the government began to import certain quantities of fish, especially from Chile, to sell to the population.
Then the fish entered the category of free but controlled sales.
The product regulations stated that in a family of one to three people, one fish was sold, four to six people, two fish, and with seven or more people in a family, three fish were then sold.
This sale was also noted in the control book that each family would always have for the delivery of subsidized food.
In addition, the price that was initially established was 20 CUP per pound, but neither the price nor the quality of the horse mackerel that was sold to us was well received by the population. It was then that the sale of fresh horse mackerel was launched on the open market at a price of 15 CUP per pound, only to disappear again from the shops at the beginning of the current fateful year.
Fish, however, is not lacking on the black market, although it is often inaccessible due to the high prices demanded by fishermen. Informal trade therefore does not satisfy demand either. Commercial fishing for small Cuban fishermen had been illegal for decades, which, added to the disappearance of fish at sea, made the supply scarce and excessively expensive.
On the other hand, the supply of the state fishmongers, Mercomar, is limited, very occasionally, to river specimens such as tench, tilapia and catfish, and from the sea, at a higher price and much more sporadically, to fish such as pollack and bonito.
In Mercomar, we find more often croquettes with a so-called fish taste. In fact, a large majority of fish caught both in the open sea and through aquaculture are transformed into croquettes for local trade.
However, the news in Cuba speaks of excessive compliance in the capture of snappers, cubera, lobster or shrimp, which are species that naturally abound in the seas of the island, but this should only be sold abroad or to tourism. It is a historical commercial strategy of the Cuban state to export as much seafood as possible.
The internal distribution of fish by the State has always been questionable, since the almost absolute absence of this product in the points of sale accessible to the population suggests its priority and almost exclusive transfer to hotels and restaurants, where one can certainly find good Cuban fish.
In order to address this shortage and increase opportunities for fishermen, at the beginning of this year a Fisheries Law (129/2020) was put into effect, which also attempts to put an end to illegal practices.
The problems of illegality lie above all in irresponsible fishing, the use of longlines, gillnets, pots and trawls.
In fact, illegal fishermen mainly use larger fishing gear, which allows for massive catches that are harmful to the seabed, in addition to not discriminating between larger or smaller fish.
According to official figures, there are about 2,500 illegal fishermen in Cuba. They attribute their catches mainly to private restaurants and much less to that sector of the population that can access black market prices.
Although it is true that Cubans could already fish before Law 129 came into force without the need for licenses, this activity had been reduced to the use of simple means such as rods, reels, lines and hooks in small boats, and they were not allowed to sell the catches.
The authorization of Cuban natives to engage in commercial fishing is among the most important changes in the new law, which is based on the need to regulate fishing activities to promote the recovery of the country's marine resources.
Out of 9,575 vessels, 39,000 people are dedicated to fishing on the Cuban platform. They are facing significant drops in catches, very marked in recent years.
The new fishing law in Cuba aims to guarantee the sustainability of this economic activity, vital for more than 100 coastal communities in Cuba, and, as far as possible, to bring the much-needed fish closer to the Cuban plate.
In the meantime, we continue to eat el pollo por pescao.
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