Cuba's government ration book system fails to provide adequate food as economic crisis deepens

Cuba's rationing system, established by Fidel Castro in the 1960s, is providing increasingly inadequate food supplies as the economy collapses and prices rise. State-run bodegas that once fully supplied families are now nearly empty, with residents unable to afford alternatives and forced to survive on meager salaries in a country where basic goods are increasingly sold only in U.S. dollars. The ration book, designed to provide subsidized staples, has shrunk significantly since the 1990s and no longer meets basic nutritional needs.