“Despite the existing limitations with the shortage of fertilizers and other resources, we have to use what we have and make better use of our lands because production cannot be stopped,” said José Ramón Machado Ventura in this eastern province.
At the meeting, where the progress of the municipal self-sufficiency program, the cold campaign and the plan for food sovereignty were assessed, the Cuban leader insisted on the need to redoubling efforts to efficiently exploit all areas available based on increasing the planting of food in the midst of a complex scenario for the country, as result of COVID-19 and the worsening of blockage.
“We cannot be conform only with the fulfillment of the plans and the percentages, we must reduce imports, because this substitution has a good impact on the country’s income, and the goal must be to guarantee food to the population,” he stated.
For this, he said, productions must be better planned by accurately evaluating the land according to the type of crop to be sown, and increasing the production of own seed.
In this regard, Alexander Rojas Pérez, Delegate of Agriculture in Granma, reported that in the biofactory -with an installed capacity of 3,000,000 vitroplants- they are enrrolling into the reproduction of yam and taro seeds.
He also explained that to date 23,376 hectares (ha) of the 36,201 planned for the cold season have been planted in the province; while the local self-sufficiency program at the end of November had averaged 23.6 pounds accumulated per capita for the year.
In this regard, Machado Ventura highlighted the role of the municipal government bodies, whose leaders are the main ones in charge of ensuring and demanding compliance with the production process with a view to self-sufficiency.
The Second Secretary of the Party also pointed out, to promote the planting of medicinal plants that can be used in the medicine productions, whose insertion in the pharmacy networks.
He added that within the country’s strategy to reverse the import matrix, it is essential to achieve growth in the corn production, of which more than 700,000 tons are imported annually, “and in Granma there are conditions to sow that grain,” he said.
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