Cuba: Debates at Farmers Congress Focus on Actual Ag Problems
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- national
- Business and Economy
- 05 / 16 / 2010
Cuban Ag Minister Ulises Rosales del Toro called on farmers to diversify their productions as well as increasing them, and to work on commercialization.
He urged producers from outside Havana to help on supplying larger amounts of food to the city, which lacks the land to be self-sufficient.
Several participants at the X Nacional Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) Congress, underway in Havana, spoke of lost harvest due to the inefficiency of the commercialization system implemented by the Ag Ministry, and the lack of containers to pack their produces.
ANAP President Orlando Lugo Fonte stressed on the need to eliminate bureaucracy at all levels which cripples the possibilities of producing and supplying food to the people.
Farmers tackled the gaps between them and the Agriculture officials which translate in lack of control and support from the enterprises belonging to this Ministry.
They also requested the implementation of a practical and comprehensive system that tends to their problems, to provide them with specialized training and better prices.
Bacuranao Agro Enterprise Director Manuel Ugalde acknowledged they still don’t have a working system to discuss with the farmers their harvest plans or the training they need to implement new techniques in their work.
Officials from the Ag Ministry urged for faster setting into production of idle lands leased to farmers, following the Law Decree 259/2008, to enable them to satisfy the people’s need to have vegetables, milk, meat and other products.
Both sides agreed on the importance of working together to increase production in an urgent manner, to substitute imports and to continue addressing problems in open debates that contribute to their solutions.
Source: Yahoo
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