Ubre Blanca
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ubre Blanca was the name given to a cow in Cuba which along with the "cordon de la Habana" coffee plantations, the Voisin pasture system and the microjet irrigation system, symbolizes Fidel Castro’s largely quixotic efforts to modernize Cuba's agricultural economy.
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[edit] Overview
According to Cuban scientists, Ubre Blanca produced 241 pounds of milk on a single day in January 1982 – more than four times a typical cow's production. The feat was recognized by Guinness Book of Records. Castro referred to Ubre Blanca's prodigious output in speeches as evidence of communism's superior breeding skills, and the cow's achievements were often printed in Cuba's government-controlled newspapers. To many Cubans, Ubre Blanca evokes memories of the era before the so-called "Special Period" – the economic collapse that followed the demise of the Soviet Union, Cuba's main benefactor, beginning in 1989. Cuba's cattle herd diminished from 10 million head in the 1980s to less than half of that today, most starving to death for lack of feed.
Scientists performed surgery on Ubre Blanca to harvest her eggs, hoping to fertilize them by implanting them in other cows. But in 1985, Ubre Blanca was put down at about the age of 13. (Nobody knows exactly when the cow was born.) The cow’s death was commemorated by Communist Party newspaper Granma with a full obituary and eulogy. Taxidermists stuffed Ubre Blanca and put the body in a climate-controlled glass case at the entrance to the National Cattle Health Center 10 miles outside Havana, where it still remains. Ubre Blanca was honored by her hometown of Nueva Gerona, which erected a marble statue in memory of the cow.
[edit] Poem
In the poem “Ganaderia”, Cuban exile and poet Ricardo Pau-Llosa retells the story of Ubre Blanca as an allegory of Castro’s rise to power.
- "They were educated men,
- how could they not know what was coming?
- How could they not save Ubre Blanca
- from the endless speeches, the cameras, and the fist?"
