Cuba expected to turn over new leaf in farming

Without Fidel Castro as president, Cuba is more likely to launch reforms to boost food production, create oil industry jobs and put more pesos in citizens' pockets, analysts said Wednesday.

Some changes, probably starting with efforts to help farmers, are likely to occur during the next year, some analysts said.

Raul Castro, the president's 76-year-old brother and potential successor, and other Cuban leaders for months have indicated that farmers may receive legal rights to their land and guaranteed market prices for their produce.

Those changes and other economic improvements could happen more quickly following Fidel Castro's announcement Tuesday that he would step down as head of state after nearly half a century running the island nation, analysts said.

"I don't know that Cubans would be expecting something in the next two weeks. But I do think Raul has raised expectations to a degree that they're expecting something in the course of this year," said Phil Peters, Cuba analyst for the Lexington Institute think tank near Washington.

With food production pitifully low for a country with fertile land and a year-round growing climate, farmers need more land and more autonomy in tilling it to boost output. Cuba imports at least 70% of its food, including a record $437-million worth from the United States last year.

Many Cuban farms have antiquated cultivation equipment. Donkeys and oxen are as visible in rural areas as tractors and combines.

Especially in the fields of agriculture and foreign investment, reform can and should be embraced swiftly, said Antonio Zamora, a Cuban-born lawyer and Bay of Pigs veteran who has spent the last 15 years working to repair relations between Cubans in the U.S. and those in Cuba.

"They haven't talked as much about it, but I think they may also reverse the elimination of self-employment and allow more paladares [private restaurants] and other small business," Zamora said.

Fidel Castro, 81, has long opposed anything that smacks of private enterprise or disproportionately enriches one group of Cubans. But his brother and lifelong No. 2, who began leading the country when Fidel fell ill and temporarily ceded power to him 19 months ago, has been speaking openly about the need to stimulate agricultural output by turning land back to those who want to work it and boost their living standards by the sweat of their brows.