Overview
The vast majority of Cuban families rely, for their food intake, on the Libreta de Abastecimiento (literally, "Supplies booklet") distribution system, instated on March 12, 1962. The system establishes the rations each person is allowed to buy through the system, and the frequency of supplies. Most of these products are distributed at the local bodega (convenience store specialized in distributing these rations), and in the case of meat, poultry or fish, at the local carnicería (meat store). Other industrial products are also included in the libreta, such as cigarettes, cigars, matches and cooking fuels (liquified gas, alcohol, kerosene or even charcoal, depending on each person’s means for cooking). Other products can also be distributed through this method, such as light bulbs and other home supplies.
Products included in the libreta vary according to age and gender. For example, children below 7 years old are provided 1 litre of milk per day, as are the elderly, the ill, and pregnant women. Adults above 65 years are entitled to different allowances, as well. Granting a special diet requires presentation of a medical certificate which confirms the health condition and what product requirements this condition has.
A Government office, specially created for this task, the OFICODA, distributes the libreta to all citizens each year, in the form of a small booklet. This booklet contains pages indicating the exact number and age groups of persons composing the family nucleus (typically, one booklet is released per family nucleus), as well as eventual dietary indications. A person’s products are distributed only at the bodega that serves their area of official residence. A person cannot receive their products somewhere else, so each change of address requires returning to the OFICODA to update the booklet's data, and those living away from their registered addresses have to return to the previous area for their supplies.
Products distributed through the libreta mechanism are sold at subsidized prices, which have been kept more or less stable since its inception (the mean salary of a worker has varied very little since, as well). The libreta contains a page for every month, where the clerk marks what products were withdrawn, and in which quantities. Cubans are required to present the libreta each time they buy the rations.
At its inception, the rationing system included not only food products, but industrial products as well. Along with the libreta, a tear-off coupon booklet was distributed, whose purpose was to set the allowances for industrial products, mainly clothing, shoes, and home products, as well as rationing the toys sold to families with children (which were allowed 3 different toys per child per year, usually sold near or at January 6, the Three Kings Day, or Día de Reyes). After the demise of the Eastern Bloc in 1991, Cuba entered the "Special Period" and industrial products were no longer distributed through this system.
A specific set of laws regulate the functioning of the system, as well as establishing penalties for its misuse. Most irregularities deal with clerks not signing the products in the booklet, or signing them incorrectly, and weighting of the products distributed. Citizens could be legally liable if they don't promptly inform the local OFICODA of any changes in the composition of the family nucleus.
Read more about this topic: Rationing In Cuba