Tobacco Harvesting, Valle de Viñales, Cuba, 2002. (Photo by Manuel Rivera-Ortiz; used with permission of author). Description by Rivera-Ortiz (used with permission of author): "A family of six grows tobacco in their farm which ends up in government warehouses to be shipped as cigars around the world. The family receives very little for their backbreaking work, with the rest of the profits from the sales of cigars going to government coffers for island-wide social programs. About 50,000 hectares (123,550 acres, or, 2.471 acres per hactare) are reserved for growing tobacco in Cuba. Tobacco is predominantly grown in the 90-mile-long (10-mile-wide) valley Vuelta Abajo, Pinar del Rio, where this photo was taken, at the foot of these limestone hills fraught with natural caves and tunnels which were once inhabited by Pre-Columbian Indians and later, by runaway slaves. In 1999, Altadis, a Franco-Spanish tobacco giant, is said to have signed a $500 million USD deal to take over a 50% stake in Cuba’s state owned firm Habanos S.A."