CUBAN TOBACCO WIPED OUT BY HURRICANE SANDY

CUBAN CIGAR TOBACCO WIPED OUT BY HURRICANE SANDY

CUBAN TOBACCO WIPED OUT

Hurricane Sandy Wipes Out Cuban Tobacco Crops (see colored areas on map) 

By Don Collins

www.don-collins.com

Fort the fifth time in 10 yers the Areas of Santiago de Cuba, Bayamo, Las tuknas, Marti, Camaguey, Santa Claor, Pedro Betarcourt Colon, and Pinar del Rio have been ripped apart by Hurricanes. Irene and Sandy have done most of the final damage, recently to the tobacco crops in cuba. Supporting articles and details appear below. It takes five to ten years to grow and cure proper cigar tobacco on the island. Beginning ten years ago Cuba began to import most of its cigar tobacco from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica and fell well behind in quality and quantity of production.

Many visitors to cuba represent that they have a "connection" at a Cuban cigar factor, but in fact the cigars from Cuba have been on back order and have been up until now divided on a percentage basis between the five largest distributors of cigars in the world. Now, and from now on, the only authentic thing about Cuban cigars is the ring or box they come in. And many of those will have to be reproductions from other islands or countries for the time being. Every agricultural product on the island has been damaged severely or destroyed.

5th major direct hit on Cuban Tobacco Crops in 10 Years

From Peter Orsis (Associated Press)

HAVANA—Residents of Cuba's second-largest city of Santiago remained without power or running water Monday, four days after Hurricane Sandy made landfall as the island's deadliest storm in seven years, ripping rooftops from homes and toppling power lines.

Across the Caribbean, the storm's death toll rose to 69, including 52 people in Haiti, 11 in Cuba, two in the Bahamas, two in the Dominican Republic, one in Jamaica and one in Puerto Rico.

Cuban authorities have not yet estimated the economic toll, but the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported there was "severe damage to housing, economic activity, fundamental public services and institutions of education, health and culture."

Not even more substantial structures survived

Yolanda Tabio, a native of Santiago, said she had never seen anything like it in all her 64 years: Broken hotel and shop windows, trees blown over onto houses, people picking through piles of debris for a scrap of anything to cover their homes. On Sunday, she sought solace in faith.

"The Mass was packed. Everyone crying," said Tabio, whose house had no electricity, intermittent phone service and only murky water coming out of the tap on Monday. "I think it will take five to ten years to recover. ... But we're alive."

Sandy came onshore early Thursday just west of Santiago, a city of about 500,000 people in agricultural southeastern Cuba. It is the island's deadliest storm since 2005's Hurricane Dennis, a category 5 monster that killed 16 people and did $2.4 billion in damage.

By Don Collins

PRTC (PUROTABACO) of Puerto Rico has been trying to contact CUBATABACO, Cuba's government run cigar industry to find out the true extent of the damage. Independent reports have confirmed that the industry has been completely wiped out. The soil has been leeched by excessive flooding of important chemicals needed to re-plant tobacco crops and the availability of the necessary chemicals is low and what is available is too expensive. Cuba will have to depend on tobacco, coffee and other agricultural imorts for the forseeable future. Santiago, Cuba (right).

In a related investigation PUROTABACO has found that the supply of original cigars held on the island has also been wiped out and that the remaining products in the hands of distributors are largely discovered to be fake shipments of "cuban" cigars from other parts of the world, including China, and what few real cubans there were are gone in the normal course of business. No one expected this to happen. This is an unfortunate situation and there has been an unfortunate loss of life. We are all praying for the Cuban people who didn't have a whole lot to begin with.

See www.don-collins.com for more details