HAVANA, Oct 18 (NNN-ACN) — Cuba greets World Food Day with a program to recover 35,000 hectares through project IRES (Climate Resilience in Agricultural Ecosystems in Cuba) of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Launched in 2021, IRES relies on funds amounting to 38 million dollars provided by the United Nations Green Climate Fund with a view to the country’s efforts to achieve food sustainability, according to Marcelo Resende, representative in Cuba of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Resende acknowledged Cuba’s endeavor to boost food production in line with the Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutritional Security Law, despite difficulties stemming from a global crisis caused by climate change, COVID-19, rising prices and ongoing international tension.
Meanwhile, the harvest of the first 13.42 hectares (ha) of coffee in the plain, of the Robusta variety, will begin later this month in the productive center of El Mango, in the municipality of Cumanayagua, in the province of Cienfuegos.
Omar Bermudez Sanchez, director of the Eladio Machin Agroindustrial Coffee Enterprise, explained to the press that the goal is to collect around a thousand cans of the bean in that area.
He pointed out that in the agricultural site itself they have planted 48 hectares of this crop, which are being developed, and the plan is to progressively reach 132 hectares.
The dirctive specified that they intend to extend the initiative to all the municipalities and, although it has not yet been possible because only 72 hectares have been planted since 2019 until now, they are working hard in the selection of producers.
Conceived by the Delegation of Agriculture in the province, the project of coffee development in the plain began three years ago in El Mango, in lands without exploitation for almost four decades, benefited by the waters of the Paso Bonito master canal.
Similarly, Bermudez Sanchez said, they will face the 2022-2023 nursery campaign in the mountainous region of Guamuhaya, with 2 million seedlings planned and all conditions guaranteed in terms of transportation, fuel and other resources such as sacks. — NNN-ACN
