Cuba’s Deteriorating Food Security and Its Implications for U.S. Agricultural Exports

Cuba’s economy, which has been struggling since 2016 and fared poorly during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, has been unable to achieve a strong, sustained recovery and continues to face lower tourism revenues, decreased agricultural output, energy shortages, and double-digit inflation. This continuing economic downturn has limited Cuba’s ability to import agricultural products and weakened the country’s ability to produce its own food, thereby worsening food security in Cuba. To assess the extent of this problem, researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Economic Research Service (ERS) used the International Food Security Assessment (IFSA) model. Results indicated that an estimated 12.8 percent (1.4 million people) in Cuba did not meet the daily threshold of 2,100 calories per capita in 2023. Due to uncertainties regarding the measurement of Cuba’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the researchers considered a scenario with adjusted GDP per capita (based on the average GDP per capita for the Caribbean subregion) and estimated that 37.8 percent of the population (4.2 million people) was food insecure. Although Cuba’s declining agricultural production has increased the need for agricultural imports, the country’s ongoing challenges in earning foreign exchange through tourism, remittances, and exports limit its ability to do so. Under these circumstances, U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba increased in 2021, 2022, and 2023 but were concentrated in a single commodity, chicken meat.