Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Adventurer]

Castro reforms: DVDs, farms for Cubans By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer
15 minutes ago



HAVANA - Cubans snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time Tuesday as Raul Castro's new government loosened controls on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.

Combined with other reforms announced in recent days, the measures suggest real changes are being driven by the new president, who vowed when he took over from his brother Fidel to remove some of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans.

Government television said 51 percent of arable land is underused or fallow, and officials are transferring some of it to individual farmers and associations representing small, private producers. According to official figures, cooperatives already control 35 percent of arable land � and produce 60 percent of the island's agricultural output.

"Everyone who wants to produce tobacco will be given land to produce tobacco, and it will be the same with coffee," said Orlando Lugo, president of Cuba's national farmers association.

The change is a sharp contrast to the early days of Cuba's revolution, when the government forced or encouraged private farmers to turn their land over to the state or form government-controlled collective farms. But without more details, it was difficult to tell the significance of program, which began last year but was announced only this week.

RAULCASTRO

[Ya-ta Boy]

The other day it was the right to stay in hotels, the week before, cell phones.

The glacier is beginning to melt.

[Adventurer]

I was waiting for this to happen, and I was hoping Raul Castro would carry out reforms. Cuba should move more to the center, I think. I think the next president should drop the embargo. It's about time.

[cbclark4]

I think Obama already said he would lift the embargo.

[Milwaukiedave]