Milk output grows 4-fold in Cuban province thanks to new program

HAVANA, Cuba, Sep 25 (ACN) The Sierra Maestra program allowed ranchers in Eastern Granma province to increase production of milk 4-fold in the 6 years since its inception.

The Sierra Maestra program has the purpose of obtaining milk and meat only with forage and protein plants. In 2012, cows in the sugar cane cooperatives where the program was tested averaged between 1.2 to two liters per day; now the average is 4.8.
According Luis Blanco Olivera, head of the agricultural group of the Sugar Company in the territory, so far this year the production of milk in the province is more than 41,600 liters (120 percent of the plan) and have produced 33 tons of meat over the same period last year, he said.
In the eastern province, the Sierra Maestra program includes 22 production units belonging to the five sugar mills located in Bartolomé Masó, Bayamo, Niquero, Río Cauto and Campechuela.
For this year the planting plan is 328 hectares of animal feed, and is already at 88 percent of compliance, which will translate into an increase in these figures in the coming months with the rainy season, he said.
Forages like king grass and sugarcane, as well as other plants such as tithonia, mulberry and moringa, are the basis of this program because they have a high protein content for livestock, without the need to use fodder, a dry food that is widely used in livestock but at a higher cost.
The livestock development project for obtaining meat and milk from fodder was put into practice in 2012 in the AZCUBA Sugar Group, a state entity responsible for agriculture, production of sugar cane, the entire sugar industry and its derivatives.
Since that year a survey was made of the potential of the province and several production units were chosen that could increase these lines, said the specialist, and now work is being done on the genetic improvement of the livestock mass.