Animal Feed is Priority for Cuba-Brazil Cooperation Projects

Havana, Sept 6 (ACN) Cuba’s priorities for scientific and technical cooperation with Brazil targets projects allowing short and midterm increase of animal feed production.

In a meeting here with experts from Brazil’s Cooperation Agency (ABC), Cuban deputy Agriculture Minister Maury Hechavarria addressed the lack of supplies affecting the country’s animal feed production plants and its subsequent impact on livestock programs.

Brazil, with a large experience in the production of grains, could provide Cuba with expertise, techniques and technology to improve the output of crops, particularly of corn and soybeans, major components of animal feed.

The director of Brazil’s Cooperation Agency Ruy Pereira said that the South American country has seen its warehouses full of corn, due to large harvests, while Cuba needs raw material to stabilize its production of some 900 thousand tons of animal feed, even when the local transgenic corn harvest is not enough.

If Cuba could at least achieve a grain output close to what it needs to meet its animal feed demands, it could provide the people with pork, chicken, beef, eggs and milk which are products currently imported form the international market, said experts with the Brazilian Agricultural and Livestock Company EMBRAPA.

The encouragement of the Cuban grain production would be a target for cooperation the experts noted.

Cuba-Brazil cooperation also considers agricultural machinery, watering technology, and genetics.

Ruy Pereira talked of prospects to provide the island with technology for the agro-industrial sector; in this regard an exploring mission will visit the island in November.