A Cuban salesman weighs rice in a shop in Havana. AFP PHOTO

The cash-strapped Cuban government has embarked on a program to cut import costs by increasing the island’s food production and hopes to slash rice and bean imports, staples of the Cuban diet, by 50 percent by 2013.

President Raul Castro, who took over for his older brother Fidel Castro in February 2008, has increased what the state pays for crops, decentralized agricultural decision-making and leased vacant state lands to farmers and individuals.

Cuba produced 195,000 tonnes of consumable rice in all of 2008 and imported 567,000 tonnes, most of it from Vietnam’s state-run Northern Food Corp under preferential financial terms.

The communist-run Caribbean island produced 97,000 tonnes of beans last year and imported from various countries 246,000 tonnes of dried beans, according to government statistics.

Cuba spent $2.2 billion last year to buy food, including $700 million for rice and beans combined. It imports about 70 percent of its food.

Most land in Cuba remains in state hands, but private farmers and cooperatives own some 20 percent.

The state controls the wholesale purchase and retail distribution of between 80 percent and 90 percent of all that is produced.