What a carton of eggs costs in Cuba today reveals the magnitude of the food crisis that the government itself admits

Aging in Cuba amid a national crisis. (Infobae Cuba/Martí Noticias) Fernando Fernández is 71 years old and has been lining up since the early morning hours outside a community dining hall in Havana to get his only meal of the day. Marelys Ponce does the same; she is a 34-year-old single mother of five. The two don't know each other, but they share the same daily routine, according to The Associated Press, the international news agency. "We're having a really rough time," Fernández told the agency. "I have to be here from the early morning, sometimes mark my spot from the day before," added the man, who previously worked as a cook and a guard. That scene repeats itself every morning at the Quisicuaba Association, a spiritualist organization that runs a community dining hall in the Cuban capital. Former state employees, artisans, laborers, retirees, and even professionals line up to receive the day's food. The Cuban government acknowledges the severity of the problem. The Minister of Labor and Social Security, Jesús Otamendiz, reported at the end of October that there are about 883,000 people in situations of vulnerability, equivalent to 9% of the island's population, according to data gathered by the agency. Not all of those people suffer from food insecurity, the official clarified. The calculation also includes the shortfall of 800,000 homes, the lack of family care, and low incomes. Two small pieces of bread rest on a plate next to a plastic bag with stale bread amid the food shortage facing Cuba. (Illustrative image Infobae) Why is Cuba going through this food crisis? The combination of an economy deteriorated for the past five years, the energy squeeze the United States imposed in January, an annual inflation rate of 28% in September, and shortages of basic services have left hundreds of thousands of Cubans dependent on charitable dining halls to eat at least once a day. A report by the United Nations World Food Programme, published in 2025, warned of "growing difficulties for food security and nutrition for many Cuban families." The organization was then providing support to 1.4 million people, mostly victims of natural disasters. Ponce ran into Fernández one recent morning in the line outside Quisicuaba, accompanied by two of her five children. The other three were at school, where they also receive lunch. "A little over a month ago I started coming here because the situation is bad and I don't have the means to feed them," the woman told the agency. "At least with this they eat something," she added. A citizen in Cuba places a hand on his stomach due to lack of food, in front of a wooden table with a cup of coffee. (Illustrative image Infobae) Inside the dining hall, a kitchen with more than 20 giant pots prepares a daily mixture of rice, eggs, and pasta, along with bottled chocolate milk. Few of those in line are homeless: most had stable jobs or are still working, but their incomes no longer suffice. Enrique Alemán, a physician and president of Quisicuaba, described to the agency the profile of the dining hall's new users, which receives support from United Nations agencies and European entities. The organization has registered 12,500 vulnerable people in Havana alone. "You only need to walk the streets of Havana and of Cuba to see that there is a new dimension of vulnerability," Alemán said. "We don't see the illiterate here, we don't see other kinds of marginalization, but rather people who are the fruit of the Cuban nation in especially vulnerable situations," he explained. Aging in Cuba amid a national crisis. (Infobae Cuba/Martí Noticias) The physician stressed that for decades Cuba stood out for a welfare model with free education and healthcare and mostly state employment. "There is an increase in the fragility of families as a structure in terms of economic, food, and medical support," he added. The American energy squeeze paralyzed much of the activity on the island and cost the country one of its main sources of income: tourism. At the same time, private businesses grew. On one side were left the state employees, retirees, and the most vulnerable sectors. On the other, the owners of private ventures, their better-paid employees, and those who receive remittances from abroad, according to the agency's description. On one side were left the state employees, retirees, and the most vulnerable sectors. On the other, the owners of private ventures, their better-paid employees, and those who receive remittances from abroad. EFE/Alejandro Ernesto/Archive The shortage is no longer as widespread as a couple of years ago: there are now private markets with imported products. The problem is the price, out of reach for much of the population: a carton of eggs costs 3,200 Cuban pesos, the entire monthly income of a retiree, and a bottle of oil runs around 2,700 pesos, about three dollars. A doctor's salary can reach 15,000 Cuban pesos, equivalent to about USD 18. The state tried to improve wages, but inflation erodes the purchasing power of those incomes. Luis Carlos Battista, a Cuban-American lawyer and analyst residing in Spain, attributed the rise in poverty to internal and external factors, including the global rise in food prices. According to his explanation, the pandemic "restricted international tourism and that industry has not recovered," while the energy squeeze hit "food production." Until last year, Cuba faced a food import bill of about USD 2 billion annually to sustain the Libreta de Abastecimiento, the ration system that monthly delivers rice, beans, powdered milk, chicken, oil, eggs, and some twenty other products. The authorities have already acknowledged that they cannot afford those purchases, and deliveries are delayed or simply do not arrive. The researcher Lisbeth Moya González, in an essay published in La Joven Cuba, a critical digital platform recognized among specialists, summarized the phenomenon this way: "While the official discourse speaks of advancing toward socialism, a growing part of daily life operates under an increasingly individual logic, in which each family must procure for itself in the market, through remittances, through a solidarity network... that which is no longer collectively guaranteed." The food deterioration coexists with an electrical collapse that has worsened in recent days. The Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, acknowledged on November 11 that the population expects "fewer blackouts and more food," during a meeting with the agri-food sector about a package of 176 economic reforms, according to EFE, the Spanish news agency. A woman pushes a cart while crossing the street during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, on Friday, September 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramón Espinosa) The leader admitted that Cuba imports 80% of the food it consumes, an increasingly difficult task due to the lack of foreign currency and the American oil squeeze. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, a United Nations body, projects for this year the worst economic contraction in the region, with a 10.3% drop in gross domestic product. The electrical system itself is going through its worst moment of the year. Three thermoelectric plants —Antonio Guiteras, Felton, and Ernesto Guevara— went out of service simultaneously, leaving the National Electric System able to cover barely 32% of the country's demand, according to the daily report of the Electric Union as reported by CiberCuba, a Cuban news portal.