• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 04 / 14 / 2011

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Granma Daily. JUAN VARELA PéREZ. April 12th, 2011. By the end of February 2011, 64,063 Cuban women were working in Agricultural and Livestock, and Credit and Services Cooperatives, a marked increase as a result of one of the agreements adopted at the Tenth Congress of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP).

ANAP representatives said that the Credit and Service Cooperatives have received a larger number of new associated women with a total of 50, 976 new incorporations.

Meanwhile, the number of cooperatives with an average of 23 women or more are increasing, and there are 1,432 Credit and Service Cooperatives where women play an important role in the production of crops.

These indicators are the result of a joint project by the ANAP and the Cuban Federation of Women. The newly founded western province of Artemisa, with more than 26 women per cooperative, is the most outstanding in the country so far.

The central province of Villa Clara excels for the total number of women incorporated in the cooperative and farming sector with 7,231 women practicing agricultural work.

An important indicator is the growing number of women in leadership positions in Villa Clara with a total of 203, 64 of whom work at the Agricultural Cooperatives (CPA) and 139 at the Credit and Service Cooperatives (CCS). The growth comes as result of the 11,249 beneficiaries of decree law 259.

One of the critical elements discussed during the congress was the poor work being done to make the daughters and wives of farmers join the agricultural work. Another issue was the transformations needed in cooperatives to create sources of employment for rural women.

The goal is to incorporate 100,000 women to the agricultural work at the CPA and the CCS, but there is still a lot of work to be done in this regard. The commitment is hard, but not impossible.

Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/123157