• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 08 / 24 / 2011

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2011.08.23 - 13:51:37 / radiorebelde.icrt.cu. HAVANA, CUBA.-  Coffee growers in Guantanamo’s municipality of Maisi, in the eastern tip of the island, are striving to recover hundreds of hectares of unproductive coffee fields, according to Granma.

The newspaper reports that plans are to sow 420 hectares with coffee. Of the total area 414 correspond to old coffee plantations and only six are new fields.

The report highlights that the main goal is not to expand the cultivation areas but to seal the existing ones with new and productive plantations.

More than one thousand workers and hundreds of farmers are participating in this important economic activity to speed up the sowing process taking advantage of the current humidity to plant as much as possible before the harvest begins in September.

The head of agricultural techniques of the Municipal Agricultural Enterprise, Leonel Pelegrin Ortiz, said the plan for the province is to cover 1,616 hectares.

Pelegrin Ortiz said the increase on the grain’s price has been a great incentive for coffee growers, as well as the fact that the Agricultural Enterprise produced the certified seeds needed to meet the municipality's demand, and the substantial growth in the number of seedbeds (from seven two years ago to 149 at present), among other factors.(ACN)