Raul Castro: "The need to produce food remains intact".

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 28 (ACN) Times have changed, but the need to produce food remains intact, warned Army General Raul Castro in a congratulatory message on the 34th anniversary of the Urban, Suburban and Family Agriculture Movement (AUSUF).

At the ceremony held on Monday at the National Botanical Garden in the capital, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero read out the Army General's greeting, in which he also highlighted the achievements of this movement in the country.

He pointed out that 34 years have passed since the incipient experience of growing vegetables in beds enriched with organic fertilizer.

What was an exception in very few places, gradually spread throughout the country, until it reached more than 12,640 hectares that make up the productive base of the Urban, Suburban and Family Agriculture Movement, wrote Raúl Castro.

"Our country, besieged as never before by the United States of America, has no choice but to move forward with its own forces and, in that battle you play an essential role, you, faithful promoters of the sovereignty that is born of the countryside and effort."

The Army General recognized the existing potentialities and how much more could be achieved if all the available areas in cities, communities, plots and yards were exploited, and if those sown were used more intensively.

Finding the answers to these questions is the best help we can give to our people, those people who have been able to overcome these hard times and who will once again emerge victorious, Raul Castro said in his message.

As always, we count on you to achieve the longed-for and, above all, essential food security, he concluded.

Monday's meeting, according to Tribuna de La Habana, was attended by Deputy Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia; Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba in the capital; and Reinaldo García Zapata, Governor of Havana.

Also present were Elizabeth Peña, director of the AUSUF; Anierka Fernández, from the national secretariat of the Federation of Cuban Women; Rodolfo Rodríguez, vice minister of Agriculture; and producers and representatives of associations linked to the Ministry of Agriculture.