(EFE)
In this harvest, which began in the central province of Cienfuegos, the milling of 6.5 million tons of sugar cane with only 23 factories13 less than in the previous one, according to the strategy exposed by the Azcuba state group, which runs the area.
It is about making an “objective, flexible and, although small, good practices” harvest, concentrating resources in fewer plants with the aspiration of achieving “greater efficiency”, as explained by the president of Azcuba, Julio García Pérez.
The destination will be to concentrate production for family consumption through the ration card –that delivers 4 pounds of sugar per person per month – as well as tourism, medicines, industrial productions and exports.
The plans of the sector point to the objective of producing more alcohol, electricity and derivatives for internal consumption and the foreign market
In addition to producing to satisfy national consumption, the sector’s plans point to the objective of producing more alcohol, electricity and derivatives for internal consumption and the foreign market.
In the previous campaign, in round numbers, 480,000 tons of sugar were manufactured; 36 plants milled just over six million tons of cane and production was classified as the lowest in the last hundred years of the history of this industry in Cuba.
The sugar sector on the Island employs more than 180,000 people directly, counting the families of the workers, so it is considered that more than 700,000 Cubans live from sugarcane production, according to official figures.
The sugar industry was in other times the economic locomotive of Cuba, but it suffered a drastic drop in production starting in the 1990s with the crisis after the fall of the Soviet bloc.
Between 2009 and 2010, production plummeted to a record 1.1 million tons.
Cuba had 156 operational factories in 1959, at the triumph of the Revolution, which in that year produced 5.6 million tons of sugar and later rose to 8 million in the best harvests, between 1970 and 1989.
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