Fidel's experiment with Marxist-Leninist political economy has been a total failure. Cuba was one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America before 1959. Under the Castroism the island economy has been ruined beyond recognition, transforming it into a third world country.

Cuba sugar production was 1.3 million tons in 2009, the worst harvest in 105 years. In the decade of the 1950s Cuba exported an average of 5.0 million tons a year, supplying 35% of the world's export market. Who would have imagined that the world's largest exporter of sugar would have to resort to external supplies to meet its needs?

The regime currently imports about 84% of the food stuffs. Who would have imagined that Cuba would become an importer of food, even importing sugar, of all things, from the United States, of all places?

Food shortages are a function of an inefficient collectivized agricultural system resulting from Castro regime unwillingness to liberalize Cuba's economy, gross incompetence and criminal negligence.