Tobacco Asia

Tobacco Asia 45 The result is an island with limited access to hydrocarbons and no easy alternative. Since those supply lines were disrupted, daily life has become increasingly defined by uncertainty, with rolling power outages and fuel rationing now normalized across urban and rural regions of the country. Within the factory For most Cuban industries, that has meant con- traction. For cigars, it has meant adjusting to the new reality. At the factory level, production has not stopped. In some cases, it has remained surprisingly stable. "At the factory level, production has been steady and not necessarily affected by power outag- es," said a veteran roller at Havana's El Laguito fac- tory. The reason is simple and increasingly central to the story: solar power. "Many of the factories… operate on solar power," he said. That shift is not cosmetic. It is foundational. Solar systems enable factories to maintain base- line operations even as the national grid falters. Work continues during outages that would other- wise halt production entirely. In a labor-intensive industry built on consistency, stability is critical. Inside factories, workers have access to food and water, and production lines can continue uninter- rupted. However, that stability ends the moment workers leave the facility. "It is not the same in the workers' neighbor- hoods," said the El Laguito employee. "There is a shortage of electricity, food, and fuel… it makes transportation very, very complicated and expen- sive." He paused before adding what has become the defining sentiment of the moment: "We are hoping the situation will improve, God willing." The labor shortage is no longer anecdotal; it is systemic. "Factory floors that once had roughly 400 cigar rollers working at a time may now be operating with closer to 80," Sheldon Lloyd Smith, president of the Cigar Association of Canada, told the media. That contraction is reshaping output capacity and creating long-term challenges for an industry that depends on highly-skilled labor. Training new rollers takes years, and the loss of experienced workers cannot be quickly re- placed. "Workers are often absent because of is- sues at home, including shortages of power and food. Many have also left for jobs abroad. It is a challenge to train new rollers," the El Laguita roller said. At the same time, logistics continue to strain the system. "Tobacco must be transported from farms to curing barns, workers must travel to factories, and finished cigars must move through export channels," Lloyd Smith said. "When fuel availabil- ity becomes limited, those logistical steps can slow down production and delay shipments." Those delays are no longer abstract—they are being felt across the global market. On the farm As factories stabilize with solar panels, farms are being rebuilt around them. The Cuban tobacco sector is undergoing a fundamental shift in how it powers agricultural production. What began as a workaround is quickly becoming a long-term strategy. "Life has told us that we must migrate to other energy sources," said José Liván Font, first vice president of Tabacuba, the agricultural and manufacturing arm of the state tobacco industry. That migration is happening at scale. Cuba is targeting approximately 10,000 hectares of to- bacco production, supported by renewable energy systems, to reduce dependence on the national grid and stabilize output amid ongoing blackouts. In key growing regions like Pinar del Río, more than 5,000 hectares rely on electric irrigation sys- tems that have been heavily affected by power outages, according to Tabacuba. The consequences of those disruptions have been significant. "We estimate a shortfall of half the contracted amount," said Mario Luis Zamora Medina, general director of the Integrated Tobac- co Company in Consolación del Sur, as blackouts reduced yields across key growing areas. In some cases, entire planting cycles were affected, and irrigation failures led to lower yields and missed production targets. Solar is now changing that equation. "It is no less true that irrigating the fields was a real prob- lem due to extensive power outages and a lack of fuel; however, we can now say that this situation is almost resolved," Zamora Medina said about the rollout of photovoltaic irrigation systems. The systems themselves are evolving rap- idly and are being deployed across multiple farm- ing cooperatives. "We are generally installing two types of systems: a small one with 16 panels and a slightly larger one with 36," said Eduardo Sena, who works on an installation team responsible for assembling the infrastructure. "These panels are oriented… to maximize the use of solar radiation and the energy received." Solar energy is increasingly powering Cuba's tobacco farms and cigar factories. Credit: Wikimedia.

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