Famed Cuban Tobacco Grower Dead at 91

"I wouldn't say I've triumphed, but I've done something with my life," Alejandro Robaina told CNN. "The first thing is to love the land, take care of the land."

Cuban tobacco grower Alejandro Robaina, an international symbol of the island's cigar-making prowess, died Saturday. He was 91.

Cuban state television announced his death, and the state tobacco concern Habanos SA, which produces the Robaina brand cigar, said on its website that he was the "victim of a somber illness."

The only Cuban grower with a cigar brand named after him, Robaina traveled for decades as an unofficial global ambassador for the island's stogies. Into his final days, he could be found smoking cigars in a rocking chair on his front port in San Luis, in westernmost Pinar de Rio Province.

He worked the fields in Vuelta Abajo, Cuba's most-famous cigar-growing region, where Habanos — a joint venture between the communist government and Britain's Imperial Tobacco Group PLC — produced Robainas.

Born in the town of Alquizar on March 20, 1919, Robaina began working his family's fields from the time he was 10. He remained in Cuba after the revolution that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista and brought Fidel Castro to power on New Year's Day 1959.

"I had a very strong conversation with Fidel 18 or 20 years ago," Robaina said in 2008, according to CNN. "He asked if I would join a big cooperative since I had so many workers, and I told him no.

"For me tobacco growing had to be in the family, done with love. Because in the big cooperatives, everyone's the boss, nobody worries as much as the grower."

Robaina became famous for the top-quality tobacco he helped produce and was honored numerous times by the Castro government.

"He left an indelible mark on the history of Cuban tobacco," Havana's Radio Reloj reported.

There was no immediate word on funeral arrangements.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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