Report: Cuba’s Pinar del Río 2024-2025 Crop Will Meet Lowered Target

[JohnS]

March 18, 2025 - Charlie Minato

Report: Cuba’s Pinar del Río 2024-2025 Crop Will Meet Lowered Target

In Pinar del Río, the most important province for Cuba’s tobacco fields, the 2024-2025 crop will be similar in size to last year.

According to a report from Agencia Cubana de Noticias, through the end of February, farmers have planted 10,378 hectares. This is close to the revised target of 10,500 hectares that was set in September 2024, though below the initial goal of 14,771 hectares.

A hectare is 100m x 100m, about 2.5x that of an acre.

In the prized Vuelta Abajo region, there are 831 hectares. While Cuba grows tobacco in other parts of the island, Pinar del Río—the western-most part of the island—is far and away the most important province and includes towns like San Juan y Martínez and San Luis.

Since Hurricane Ian ravaged Pinar del Río in September 2022, Cuba’s main growing region has been rebuilding. It was estimated that 90 percent of the curing barns in the province were damaged, something that remains an issue today. Osvaldo Santana Vera of Tabacuba, the state-owned company in charge of tobacco production, told ACN that he was hoping for more wood deliveries, which would allow for more curing barns and could increase the size of the crop. In addition, heavy rains in September 2024 led to the destruction of 10,000 seed beds and pushed back some of the planting until earlier this month.

The hope is that the region will harvest 12,000 tons of tobacco.

Since Ian hit, Cuba’s tobacco production has noticeably dipped. In the fall of 2021, Tabacuba said that it planned to plant more than 16,000 hectares in Pinar del Río and harvest 17,600 tons. In order to achieve the current numbers, Cuba is hoping to harvest 1.21 tons per hectare, up from the 1.1 it planned for the 2021-2022 crop.

The previous crop—the 2023-2024—was originally targeted at nearly 13,000 hectares but was reduced to 10,200 hectares, in line with this year’s production.

Source: https://halfwheel.com/report-cubas-pinar-del-rio-2024-2025-crop-will-meet-adjusted-target/448363/