In Vertientes, Camagüey Province, rural communities endure prolonged blackouts and service shortages, driving mass migration to cities. Residents invest in solar panels to cope, but many choose to leave their homes. Demographic studies confirm young women lead this exodus, worsened by the economic crisis.
In the small town of Vertientes, Camagüey Province, solar panels have dotted the landscape due to electricity cuts averaging just four hours a day in 2025. Resident Milagros Malpica invested nearly $1,000 in a basic photovoltaic system, funded by the family farm and remittances from her children in the United States. “It’s a tremendous investment, but there’s no other way to live. Not just because of the long hours without power, but because when it returns, it arrives with low voltage and you have to wait for it to stabilize,” Malpica explained, noting food losses from spoiled refrigerators that exceeded the equipment's cost.
Local driver Yariel plans to relocate to Camagüey city in 2026 with his family, selling their rural home. “From Vertientes, the only thing left to do is leave,” he stated, decrying the lack of priority for rural electricity repairs, where bateyes have gone weeks without service. “The countryside is emptying out; everyone wants to go to town. With no transportation, doctors, or jobs, who wouldn’t think about leaving?” he reasoned.
These challenges stem from uneven resource allocation: since 2000, 50-60% of the investment budget has gone to Havana, home to less than 20% of the population, per the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI). Provincial capitals get 70% of the remainder, leaving just 30% for smaller municipalities. Thus, Havana residents receive three times the investment of those in provincial capitals and nine times more than in rural small towns.
A September 2023 study by the University of Havana's Center for Demographic Studies (CEDEM) shows young women emigrating most, followed by men under 50 and children. “There are many factors: difficulties in marketing products, transportation issues, access to health and education,” researcher María Ofelia Pérez noted. The national census, delayed multiple times by the crisis, aims to quantify this depopulation, which has shrunk Cuba's population by 1.5 million since 2022, to 9.6 million by end-2025. In April assemblies of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), president Félix Duarte Ortega acknowledged the average co-op worker age nears 60, calling for “concrete actions.”
