CAIMITO, CUBA – Alexander Quesada was gifted a tractor for turning a Cuban rubbish dump into a model farm, but these days he is using oxen to pull his plow as a severe energy crisis worsened by a U.S. blockade hobbles food production.
The changing fortunes of Quesada’s organic farm — Finca Burgambilia,?named after the vibrant purple flowers that bedeck the entrance — follow those of communist Cuba’s relations with the United States over the past decade.
Quesada, 52, looks back fondly on what he refers to as the “Obama years” a decade ago, when a historic detente with Washington helped spur a tourist influx.
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