Raising food production becomes a key challenge.

By Roberto Morejón

In accordance with the order of needs, the Communist Party of Cuba widely discussed food production, which was still insufficient, and urged the creation of wealth and production.

One of the ideas most discussed at the VIII Plenary Session of the Party organization was that of guaranteeing better and greater access to food, with emphasis on contributions from the fields and any available space in cities and towns.

As has been reiterated by the government, in Cuba it is a cardinal task to seek municipal self-sufficiency, an ambitious concept at first sight, given the adverse material circumstances.

In a country that suffers a U.S. blockade and the deprivation of credits for being placed on an arbitrary list of sponsors of terrorism, it is a titanic task to access inputs, seeds, fuel and machinery for planting and harvesting crops.

At the eighth plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, they reiterated that in such circumstances there is no other alternative but to appeal to science, innovation, agro-ecology and to generalize positive experiences, today only obtained by exception.

It is not that the largest of the Antilles is paralyzed, since among other steps it established two years ago the Law on Food and Nutritional Sovereignty and Security, although, as has been noted, there are difficulties for its effective implementation.

However, at the party meeting held in Havana, they heard that experts have identified the causes that adversely affect food production.

Based on this, proposals were made aimed at finding solutions, under the premise of defending the increase of national production, especially food, and discarding the harmful habit of importing most of it, as it happens today.

Special care is required for the cooperative and peasant sector, since more than 80 percent of the generation of nutrients comes from them, and although more than 2 million 500 thousand hectares have been given in usufruct for livestock and crops, it is far from receiving the expected contributions.

The Cubans are working under difficult circumstances, but they are not relenting in their plans to move towards a healthy and efficient economy, as President Miguel Díaz-Canel pointed out.