For all their love of dairy, Cubans have always remained starved for milk.
With her titular white udders she single-handedly revolutionised Cubas dairy culture, albeit temporarily.
But how did that happen?
Fidel Castro became the face of Cuba in January 1959.
The man was a riveting politiciansocialist in his approach and hardcore in his execution.
But he was not just that.
A poisonous pill was placed in the freezer of the Hotel Habana Libre in the mid-60s.
This was where Castro drank his chocolate milkshake every day.
The poison was to be slipped in while preparing this milkshake.
The attempt failed though, as the pill froze onto the freezers wall and broke during extraction.
Growing Demand Without Supply
And thus, development spurred in the milk industry.
The communist leaders craze was now becoming state policy.
Cubans were craving more and more milk, but the system was not sustainable.
The cebu cows native to Cuba were unable to produce the amount of milk that could satiate public need.
Castro imported high-yielding Holstein cows from Canada, but they couldnt survive the tropical climate.
Fidel Castro pats Ubre Blanca.
In Castros vision, these cows would be bred by the hundreds, and soon multiply to the millions.
As they say, you only have to be right one time.
And right Castro was.
The one and only successful cow was birthed from this experiment in 1972, and named Ubre Blanca.
She became his personal pet project, quite literally.
These numbers were flashed on the daily news for the entire nation to see.
Surely enough, the well-kept artificially bred cow delivered 109.5ltrs of milk in July 1982.
Soon after, her total production was recorded at 24,269lts over a 305-day lactation cycleanother record breaking achievement.
Ubre Blanca was now ready to dominate as a political symbol.
Her daily life was aired on television akin to soap operas that kept locals hooked.
The citizens loved her.
Diplomats and journalists visited from the world over just to get a peek at the miracle mammal.
Cuban milking cows in front of a Havana residence.
Photo:Wikimedia
But theres only so much a single cow can do.
None of the other cows ever produced as much milk as Ubre Blanca.
This meant that the poor bovine was stressed time and again to meet exceptional standards of production and calving.
After thirteen years of having produced four times more milk on a daily basis, her health gave in.
Here they froze her eggs for future use.
The procedure aggravated a tumor in her rump, and the animal had to be euthanised soon after.
Her remains still sit embalmed in a glass urn at the center.
That day, a eulogy was published in the newspaper.
An entire page was dedicated to Ubre Blancas obituary.
The animal was sent off with military honours.
Castro soon after had a statue of his beloved cow built in the town of Nueva Gerona.
Attempts continued to renew the situation, but in vain.
In 2002, a project was undertaken to clone the superior cow from Ubre Blancas genetic materials.
Castros dreams continue to float as dreams, long after his incumbency.
