Rationing Says Goodbye To “Chicken For Fish”

Rationing Says Goodbye To “Chicken For Fish” / 14ymedio, Zunilda Mata

14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 23 January 2017 — The news has appeared
quietly in the official media: since the beginning of this year the
share of the so-called “chicken for fish*” has been eliminated from the
rationed market. The measure is part of the process of the
“rearrangement of the basic market basket,” as confirmed by the Camagüey
newspaper Adelante in its Saturday edition.

As of January 1st of this year the distribution of chicken in rationing
networks is governed by new quotas. The meat companies of each province
will be responsible for the subsidized distribution of chicken meat,
including the six ounces that, until last December, was arranged the
Fishery Industry to replace fish.

Kenya Medina Monesti, director of the Meat Company of Camagüey, said
that with this measure the population living in urban areas will receive
12 ounces of chicken per person nine times a year, while in December
they will get only 8 ounces.

In February and September there will be deliveries in urban areas only,
and only for children under six years old, who will be entitled to six
ounces of chicken in each of these two months.

The distribution will be spaced out more widely in rural areas, where
consumers will be able to purchase the product only four times a year,
“in an amount equivalent to 10.6 ounces,” according to the report.

Each consumer would receive 7 pounds and 4 ounces of chicken a year, of
which 6 ounces a month would replace fish (the so-called “chicken for
fish”). Consumers will now receive 1 pound and three quarts of chicken a
month for adults, and 11 ounces for children under the age of 14. In
this way, each person gets three quarters of a pound of chicken more
than before.

In 2014 the official press confirmed that the fishing crisis, which
reduced fish consumption by 75%, would be very difficult to overcome, so
seafood would continue to be missing from the ration card.

“Today, as a practical matter, we have only the fish from our own
catches and from aquaculture, which together total just over 37,000
tonnes of fish,” said industry officials cited by the
newspaper Granma. This amount is well below 200,000 tonnes, mainly of
mackerel from the Soviet Union, which was consumed in the 1980s on the
island.

*Translator’s note: The ration market has historically provided both
chicken and fish to Cubans as a part of their monthly food ration.
However, for years, fish has been scarce, to the ration markets
routinely substituted “chicken for fish.”

Source: Rationing Says Goodbye To “Chicken For Fish” / 14ymedio, Zunilda
Mata – Translating Cuba –
translatingcuba.com/rationing-says-goodbye-to-chicken-for-fish-14ymedio-zunilda-mata/