Cuba approves new measures to boost food production

HAVANA, Cuba, May 3 (ACN) New measures aimed at boosting food production in Cuba were approved by the country's top leadership and published on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG).

Among the approved measures, 30 have a priority nature in the effort to increase food for the people, amid a context conditioned by the tightening of the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba, the affectations caused by COVID-19 and the implementation of the economic-social strategy to mitigate these evils.

Some of the actions outlined by MINAG include: considering individual agricultural producers as part of the agricultural productive base; prioritizing investments in productive programs with the greatest impact on import substitution and exports; and applying financial treatment to a group of cooperatives that are currently showing losses and have possibilities of continuing operations.

Similarly, food production will be strengthened at the local level, including Urban, Suburban and Family Agriculture and livestock modules; the development of the mini-industry for the production of products for this purpose will be promoted; and state production will be recovered in the 26 pig farms.

The measures will also try to boost meat and egg production in poultry companies; to implement the 28 measures foreseen for the recovery of bovine livestock, conceived in the Economic and Social Strategy; and to authorize the commercialization of bovine meat and self-consumption to the producers, after complying with the state order, and as long as they guarantee that there is no decrease in the livestock mass.

The sale of milk and its derivatives is also authorized upon compliance with the delivery plan and indicators established by the livestock industry; and the design and management of nature and rural tourism products will be developed in state companies, cooperatives and agricultural producers, under local development project modalities.