Cuba’s food shortage to be solved by ostriches, crocodiles, and rodents

From our Bureau of Truly Weird News From Barbaric Third World Hellholes

Before the Castro “Revolution” came along in 1959, food was plentiful in Cuba.

Ever since, food has been scarce and rationed, and for the past two decades, only those Cubans who have access to dollars and euros have been able to avoid standing in line for small amounts of low-quality food items.

And now, with the collapse of the colony of Venenozuela, and the beginning of a new “Special Period”, food has become even harder to find.

The solution offered by Cuba’s rulers is so strange that the idea must have come straight from Fidel’s feverish brain, perhaps from some plan he designed years ago that Guillermo Garcia Frias found stashed away in a drawer.

Communist oligarch and army general Garcia Frias, 91, was a close friend of Fidel. Perhaps the Maximum Leader whispered this plan to him on his deathbed.

Ay! Read it and weep (or laugh):

From Granma Euro-Lite (Reuters)

 From breeding miniature cows to importing water buffalo, Cuban leaders have long gotten creative in their effort to remedy food shortages. Now, they are proposing ostrich and rodent farms as an answer, prompting ridicule from a weary population.

Meat and eggs have become hard to find in the Communist-run country in recent months due to a declining economy. Meanwhile officials are touting the potential of the flightless African bird and the hutia, a rodent native to Cuba that can weigh up to 8.5 kg (19 pounds).

“An ostrich lays 60 eggs, and of those you get around 40 chicks, and from these 40 chicks per year you get four tonnes of meat – whereas a cow just gives birth to one calf and after a year it’s only a yearling,” said Guillermo Garcia Frias.

Garcia Frias, 91, holds the honorary title of commander of the revolution as a former guerrilla in Cuba’s 1959 revolution and heads state company Flora and Fauna that is developing seven ostrich farms. He spoke at a roundtable discussion broadcast on state TV last week.

He lavished praise on hutias for their “level of protein higher than any other meat” and “high quality pelt,” noting his company was also breeding crocodiles.

His comments have prompted sarcastic memes and jokes that have gone viral on social media since Cuba’s food schemes have often failed to fulfill expectations.

In one meme, a Cuban arrives home with a live ostrich he got via the state ration card. In another a flock of the birds from Cuba arrives at the Mexican-U.S. border seeking asylum.