Quote:
Originally Posted by JJG
oh wow, I didn't realize the "Cuban seed" tobacco being grown in other countries was from such old stock. Is it that hard to smuggle out some more recent seeds? Considering the financial benefits to be gained from doing so, I would think someone would have done so by now.
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It certainly is that hard to smuggle out seeds. Certain tobacco farms are relegated to producing seed stock rather than tobacco in a very specialized system, as the farms that grow for leaf grow plants that do not seed or something like that (this is from what I remember reading in places, I could be wrong about that); for example, one of the major benefits of the new Capero No. 1 strain is that it does not even flower.
The farms that grow seed in Cuba are very highly-guarded, to the extent that only a few individuals even know where they are. Tobacco fields look like tobacco fields, but only the farmer and the very high-ups in Cubatabaco know which ones grow the seed stock, and the farms themselves, let alone the seed stock farms, aren't just openly available. Visitors to Cuba, unless granted particular permission for some particularly good reason, cannot visit any tobacco farms, regardless of their purpose. Señor Robaina's farm is the most commonly visited (at least, I haven't seen or heard of any other farms ever visited; whenever a tobacco farm is visited in Cuba in whatever article, it's Don Alejandro's), and that's a wrapper leaf farm. The only thing that people come away with on those visits are occasionally some cigars the vegueros sneak to them on the way out, or gifts that Señor Robaina gives them himself. With that, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think the seed stocks themselves are kept somewhere else even more secure, such as at El Instituto de Investigaciones del Tabaco in Havana.
So smuggling seeds out of Cuba sounds a little harder than one might think on the surface, especially since one would have to abscond with a hefty amount to make the endeavor productive or profitable.