Cuban leader urges to increase agricultural productions

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 28 (ACN) The need to take full advantage of the land, and extract the maximum from it, was stressed on Sunday by José Ramón Machado Ventura, Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), in an exchange with the highest authorities of the Party, the Government and the Agricultural Sector in Cuba´s easternmost province, Guantanamo.

Machado pointed out that any unused cultivable space conspires against municipal self-sufficiency, a purpose he described as unavoidable, on which the presidents of the Assemblies and municipal mayors focus their attention and work, responsible for satisfying the food requirements of the residents within their radius of action.

The Second Secretary of the PCC recognized the effort invested in this city in the space that surrounds it and is known as the Green Belt, when he participated in the exchange in which were also José Ramón Monteagudo Ruiz, member of the Secretariat; Rafael Pérez Fernández, member of the Central Committee and its First Secretary in Guantánamo and Governor Emilio Matos Mosqueda.

However, he clarified that it is required in that zone, located in the arid coastal strip Caimanera-Maisí, as in the rest of the province, to promote irrigation in the areas where it is feasible, to use quality seeds and to increase the livestock modules.

Regarding this initiative to provide animal protein for the people, said Dionis San Lois, delegate of Agriculture, that there are already 234 areas working, while other 182 are planned to be built in 2021.
He added that they are working on the completion of the reproducers of the different species that will occupy the facilities and in the balance of food, in which protein plants and other alternative sources will occupy preeminence.

Perez Fernandez said that although it does not yet yield the expected results, there is a movement in the territory of yards and plots of urban, suburban and family agriculture, on the rise, and progress is being made in the construction of buildings for small livestock in productive forms where possible, to meet the 5 kilograms of meat per person.

Machado Ventura exhorted to materialize that desire as soon as possible, although he recognized the effort required to reach that norm, in a province whose vocation is not precisely cattle raising, to more than half a million consumers, who in one month need 2,547 tons of meat.

In this regard, the First Secretary of the Party in the province assured that Guantanamo persists in that purpose, for which 11 measures were implemented, among which he listed the creation of a genetic center with 400 rabbit breeding stations, consolidating the 11 sheep-goat breeding centers and repairing and expanding the poultry breeding farm in Yateras.

The progress of Guantanamo in this last branch, particularly in traditional poultry farming was praised by the Second Secretary of the Central Committee, with public congratulations to one of those present, Eider Alvarez Ramirez, director of the poultry company of the territory, an entity that so far this year has contributed to the province 980 thousand eggs and 3.7 million to the national balance, both figures much higher than the plan.