• Submitted by: Luis Manuel Mazorra
• Business and Economy
• 02 / 07 / 2012

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Havana, Feb 6 (Prensa Latina) Cuba will begin this year to promote new crops in the environment of urban agriculture program, the researcher said Adolfo Rodriguez, head of national group that directs the production management in the ministry of industry.

   The funcionairo said that among the innovations planned for 2012 include the introduction of the variety of pepper known as Tropical CW-3, suitable for export and tourism industry.

Turn in the provinces of Cienfuegos and Villa Clara (center), Holguín (east), and Matanzas (west) will begin to plant the water jicama, a tuber that is a source of food for pigs, especially prepared as yogurt, and while improving the soil.

During the analysis the work of the agricultural industry in 2011 is also the director of the Institute of Fundamental Research in Tropical Agriculture said that on the island organized the cultivation of strawberries in terms of organic farms (beds) semi-protected (shaded regulated).

He also announced the training of over 110 000 farmers in areas such as agro-ecological pest management, organic fertilizers, animal food and seed.

With its origins in late 1987 as an initiative of Cuban President Raul Castro, the urban agriculture program, which was added that of the suburban in 2008, came last year over one million tons of vegetables, fruits and condiments.

These crops took place in an area of ​​about nine thousand acres, which aim to extend to 10 000 in the coming months.

This was known to be held in the central-southern province of Cienfuegos meeting productive analysis of the results of the program in 2011, one of seven developed by the Ministry of Agriculture in the Greater Antilles.