Rationing 1947). Tea was still on ration until 1952. In 1953 rationing of sugar and eggs ended, and in 1954, all rationing finally ended when cheese and meats came off ration. Sugar was again rationed in 1974 after Caribbean producers began selling to the more lucrative United States market. Many centralized planned economies introduced a peacetime rationing system due to food shortages in the postwar period. North Korea and China did so in the 1970s and 1980s, Communist Romania during the 1980s, the Soviet Union in 1990–1991, and from 1962-present in Cuba. A good example of this system was Poland. In
Rationing in Cuba frequency and quantities of goods distributed and, in their opinion, this method creates profound economical differences within the Cuban people, dividing the country in half: those who can afford the higher prices of goods in convertible pesos or in the "mercado libre", and those that simply cannot. They stress, as well, the fact that the measure was adopted by the Cuban government in 1962 as a temporary palliative to a crisis and has lasted for more than fifty years. Rationing in Cuba Rationing in Cuba refers to the system of food distribution known in Cuba as the "Libreta de Abastecimiento"