More than 80 percent of the rice consumed in Cuba is imported, and we have the infrastructure to produce it and increase those levels every year, Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa stated today.
During a working visit to the Pinar del Río municipality of Los Palacios, the Cuban Vice President called for encouraging rice cultivation, for people to plant and for the largest amount produced to be sold to rice companies for industrial processing and to increase yields.
Everything happens in the municipality, which is why the institutions must function; Territories need to be more sovereign in food production, especially the food most consumed by Cubans, considering that around 120 in Cuba have agriculture as their main activity, he noted.
At the Cubanacán Base Business Unit, Valdés Mesa was interested in the cooperative production experience with the Vietnamese company Agri VMA, which acquired land in usufruct and has already planted just over 1,000 hectares (ha).
Thanks to this foreign investment model, more than 1,000 tons of grain were marketed in that municipality for delivery to the standardized family basket.
Three modalities are being worked on with the Vietnamese company, and those that don’t operate in Pinar del Río can operate in another province, Valdés Mesa said.
We must maximize the benefits and experience of this cooperation with one of the largest grain-producing countries in the world, which is willing to help us with technology and seed transfers, he added.
We here have culture, a high level of education, flat terraces, and technology, all developed by Fidel, stated the member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.
Accompanied by representatives of AgriVMA and provincial authorities, the Cuban Vice President toured harvesting and puddling areas and the Camilo Cienfuegos Industrial Base Business Unit, dedicated to drying and milling rice, with a 65 percent yield to date.
Valdés Mesa emphasized the yields of the varieties used in the spring campaign, both from the Asian nation and the Ginés LP-18, developed at the Los Palacios Scientific-Technological Base Unit, in conjunction with the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences.
Another Vietnamese company will contribute to promoting rice production in Granma and will be the second in the country to do so.
With executives from the Los Palacios Agroindustrial Grain Company, he learned that the entity planned to plant 13,103 hectares and produce 21,765 tons of wet rice this year.
13,807 hectares have already been planted, and in the specialized sector, 6,942 of the planned 6,000 hectares have been planted. Likewise, the popular sector has exceeded the estimate, with 7,865 hectares planted out of 7,103 hectares, explained Ariel García Pérez, director of the entity.
We have managed to create a movement and a lot of willingness; but we need to reach 100 percent of producers and know all the rice they have planted because the province of Pinar del Río is in a position to become self-sufficient in a short period of time, emphasized Salvador Valdés Mesa.
