Reuters: New Cuba reform allows farmers to hire workers directly

A political science professor was quoted by Reuters for an article about reform in Cuba.

Paolo Spadoni, the author of several books on the Cuban economy and an associate professor of political science, told Reuters that Cuba should liberalize distribution, reduce the state quota for Cuban producers and give farmers freer rein to set their own prices. Backtracking on some reforms, like restoring price controls in the face of rising food costs, could backfire.

“(This reform) signals the urgency to tackle major problems in agriculture,” Spadoni said in the article, which ran in newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer and international outlets like the Daily Mail Online. “But the resolution alone will do little to boost production and efficiency unless it will be accompanied by additional changes.”