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Pressure is mounting across Cuba’s tobacco industry, from farms and factories to retail shelves.
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Solar energy is increasingly powering Cuba’s tobacco farms and cigar factories. Photo credit: Wikimedia.
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A systemic shortage of skilled cigar rollers is reshaping output capacity and posing long-term challenges for the industry.
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Solar power has reduced farmers’ reliance on fuel and grid electricity, helping stabilize conditions and renew interest in tobacco cultivation.
The lights go out in Havana, but in the cigar factories, the rollers keep rolling. That’s not a metaphor. It’s the operating model. Across Cuba, blackouts are routine, fuel is scarce, and logistics are strained by an escalating US oil embargo. Entire sectors of the economy are slowing or ending. Tourism is faltering, transportation is inadequate and unreliable, and food shortages are worsening.
Yet inside the country’s legendary cigar factories, the rhythm of cigar-making continues—bunch, bind, mold, wrap, cap, cut, and age. Although Habanos S.A., the global distribution arm of the government-controlled tobacco industry, has not released its 2025 figures despite numerous requests, the company reported US$827 million in sales in 2024, a 16% year-over-year increase, even as conditions deteriorated across the island. Power blackouts have occurred for at least the past three years, but this year, due to the oil blockade, they have been the worst.
Cuba’s tobacco industry is still generating revenue—but not because it is producing more cigars. Price increases and scarcity are driving value, but they are also exposing the system’s fragility. From farms to factories to retail shelves thousands of miles away, the system is under pressure. Shipments are delayed, inventories are shrinking, and workers are leaving. Retailers are rationing products.
Even the industry’s flagship global event has been disrupted. Festival del Habano—an event celebrating premium Cuban cigars that typically draws more than 1,000 visitors from about 80 countries—has been postponed. Organizers cited the need to “preserve its high standard of quality” amid blackouts and fuel shortages.
The message is clear: the crisis in Cuba is no longer something that can be managed with short-term fixes. But the response has not been to retreat. It has been to adapt. Solar panels are replacing fuel. Irrigation is being rebuilt from the ground up. Tobacco waste is being recycled into raw materials. Across every level of the supply chain, from government officials to rollers to shop owners, the same reality is acknowledged: the future is uncertain, yet the work continues.
Cuba’s energy crisis is structural rather than temporary. The country imports roughly 60% of its fuel, historically relying on Venezuela and Mexico. That supply chain has collapsed in recent months. Venezuelan exports have stalled due to a US blockade, and Mexican shipments have halted amid US tariff threats.
The result is an island with limited access to hydrocarbons and no easy alternative. Since those supply lines were disrupted, daily life has become increasingly defined by uncertainty, with rolling power outages and fuel rationing now normalized across urban and rural regions of the country.
Within the factory
For most Cuban industries, that has meant contraction. For cigars, it has meant adjusting to the new reality. At the factory level, production has not stopped. In some cases, it has remained surprisingly stable. “At the factory level, production has been steady and not necessarily affected by power outages,” said a veteran roller at Havana’s El Laguito factory. The reason is simple and increasingly central to the story: solar power. “Many of the factories… operate on solar power,” he said.
That shift is not cosmetic. It is foundational. Solar systems enable factories to maintain base-line operations even as the national grid falters. Work continues during outages that would otherwise halt production entirely. In a labor-intensive industry built on consistency, stability is critical. Inside factories, workers have access to food and water, and production lines can continue uninterrupted. However, that stability ends the moment workers leave the facility.
“It is not the same in the workers’ neighborhoods,” said the El Laguito employee. “There is a shortage of electricity, food, and fuel… it makes transportation very, very complicated and expensive.” He paused before adding what has become the defining sentiment of the moment: “We are hoping the situation will improve, God willing.”
The labor shortage is no longer anecdotal; it is systemic. “Factory floors that once had roughly 400 cigar rollers working at a time may now be operating with closer to 80,” Sheldon Lloyd Smith, president of the Cigar Association of Canada, told the media. That contraction is reshaping output capacity and creating long-term challenges for an industry that depends on highly-skilled labor.
Training new rollers takes years, and the loss of experienced workers cannot be quickly replaced. “Workers are often absent because of issues at home, including shortages of power and food. Many have also left for jobs abroad. It is a challenge to train new rollers,” the El Laguita roller said. At the same time, logistics continue to strain the system.
“Tobacco must be transported from farms to curing barns, workers must travel to factories, and finished cigars must move through export channels,” Lloyd Smith said. “When fuel availability becomes limited, those logistical steps can slow down production and delay shipments.”
Those delays are no longer abstract—they are being felt across the global market.
On the farm
As factories stabilize with solar panels, farms are being rebuilt around them. The Cuban tobacco sector is undergoing a fundamental shift in how it powers agricultural production. What began as a workaround is quickly becoming a long-term strategy. “Life has told us that we must migrate to other energy sources,” said José Liván Font, first vice president of Tabacuba, the agricultural and manufacturing arm of the state tobacco industry.
That migration is happening at scale. Cuba is targeting approximately 10,000 hectares of tobacco production, supported by renewable energy systems, to reduce dependence on the national grid and stabilize output amid ongoing blackouts. In key growing regions like Pinar del Río, more than 5,000 hectares rely on electric irrigation systems that have been heavily affected by power outages, according to Tabacuba.
The consequences of those disruptions have been significant. “We estimate a shortfall of half the contracted amount,” said Mario Luis Zamora Medina, general director of the Integrated Tobacco Company in Consolación del Sur, as blackouts reduced yields across key growing areas. In some cases, entire planting cycles were affected, and irrigation failures led to lower yields and missed production targets.
Solar is now changing that equation. “It is no less true that irrigating the fields was a real problem due to extensive power outages and a lack of fuel; however, we can now say that this situation is almost resolved,” Zamora Medina said about the rollout of photovoltaic irrigation systems.
The systems themselves are evolving rapidly and are being deployed across multiple farming cooperatives. “We are generally installing two types of systems: a small one with 16 panels and a slightly larger one with 36,” said Eduardo Sena, who works on an installation team responsible for assembling the infrastructure. “These panels are oriented… to maximize the use of solar radiation and the energy received.”
Some systems are mobile, providing flexibility across fields. Panels can rotate to track the sun and be relocated as needed, maximizing efficiency across different growing areas. Hundreds of systems are already in place, with more than 300 additional pumping units planned and another thousand expected to arrive later this year.
The impact extends beyond tobacco production. “When we finish assembling and putting all these systems into operation, the municipality will have the capacity to cultivate about 1,100 hectares of tobacco,” Zamora Medina said. “But it’s not just tobacco that will benefit… this will improve food security.”
For farmers, the shift is transformative. “The mere fact that we are not dependent on fuel or electricity is a tremendous achievement,” said Elena Duque Barbosa, a local cooperative president. “That each farmer has and can use an irrigation system at their discretion is vitally important.” The transition is also driving expansion. “We are already requesting new positions for farmers who are interested in starting to grow tobacco,” she added, reflecting growing interest in the crop as conditions stabilize at the farm level.
At the same time, the industry is becoming more efficient through innovation. At the Lázaro Peña Cigar Company (LPCC), tobacco waste is recycled into usable inputs, including reconstituted tobacco, compost, and agricultural products. “This work is fundamental to the sector’s sustainability,” said Alexis Heredia Domínguez, speaking on behalf of LPCC. In a resource-constrained system, maximizing output from every input has become essential.
Inside the shop
While Cuba adapts internally, the effects are being felt globally. Retailers are running out of cigars. “Most of the distributors have informed their customers that they’re on a rationing system,” said Jay Henderson, a La Casa del Habano retailer in Canada. Henderson has not received a shipment in months, he explained to the media. “Whatever’s left, we should be getting this month—and then after that, it’s a big shoulder shrug.”
For some retailers, the situation is existential. “It is crazy. I do not know if I can survive this,” said one Caribbean operator in St. Martin who had not received a shipment of cigars for more than six months. Stores are adjusting operations, cutting hours, and stretching inventory as long as possible. “We’re only opening for a few hours a day to try to extend the very little supply we have,” the operator said.
Logistical barriers are compounding the problem. Retailers can’t even visit Cuba to meet with Habanos leadership in person. “We can’t get there, turn around, refuel, and come back because there’s no fuel on the island,” Henderson said. The pressure isn’t limited to a few shops. “Several Canadian retailers have indicated that Cuban cigars are increasingly difficult to keep on shelves,” Lloyd Smith said.
Retailers are beginning to adapt. “Some are beginning to shift more attention toward premium New World cigars,” he added, noting a heightened focus on products from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. At the same time, demand for Cuban cigars remains strong. That imbalance—high demand and constrained supply—is driving pricing, allocation, and tension across the market.
The future remains uncertain. Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged the pressure while emphasizing resilience. “We are a country of peace… but we are prepared to defend the peace we desire,” he said in a recent interview. The message is defiance, but the reality is uncertainty. For the global cigar industry, the implications are immediate. Supply is tightening, distribution is slowing, and alternatives are gaining attention.
For Cuba, the path forward is less clear. The tobacco industry is adapting—through solar power, efficiency gains, and persistence—but it is under sustained stress. For those inside it, the outlook is simple. Not optimistic. Not pessimistic. Just real. “All we have is hope,” the El Laguito staffer said. For now, hope—and sunlight—are enough to keep the cigars coming.