Cuba promotes agricultural production poles as an encouraging experience in the midst of efforts to increase food production, currently in deficit.
By Roberto Morejón
Cuba promotes agricultural production poles as an encouraging experience in the midst of efforts to increase food production, currently in deficit.
A meeting with representatives of cooperatives and outstanding farmers of the Productive Poles of Miscellaneous Crops, yielded multiple experiences and gathered signals on a useful range of procedures in the sowings.
With the purpose of increasing deliveries of tubers, vegetables, grains and fruits, Cubans are expanding the productive poles, whose number today reaches 19, although financial limitations prevent a more accelerated progress.
These agricultural modalities have more than 152,000 hectares of arable land, of which some 20,000 are under irrigation, making them promising platforms.
Along this path, the number of provinces with these enclaves is increasing, to the point that their deliveries represented 26 percent of the total food production in 2021.
It is expected that this line of work, which does not imply the abandonment of other practices, will gain strength in the heat of a little more than six dozen provisions issued in Cuba to favor crops and harvests.
One of the most successful aspects of these regulations is the encouragement of producers' own commercialization, in order to reduce or eliminate intermediaries and gain speed in the arrival of nutrients to the markets.
It is also possible to influence a lowering of prices, currently higher than expected, for which governmental structures and social organizations are working intensively.
In any case, experts still point out that there is still a long way to go to boost work in the fields, where financial restrictions, mainly due to the U.S. blockade, mean that basic inputs are not available.
For Cuba, affected like other countries by the world food crisis and the obstacles in the supply chains due to the war in Eastern Europe and the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is essential to achieve greater integration in the production processes.
It is also imperative to streamline procedures and mechanisms in state enterprises in the agricultural sector so that, with the support of science and innovation, more answers to food requirements can be found outside the cities.
