(EFE).- The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, called this Saturday on sugar producers to “save” that sector in the midst of the crisis it is going through with production reduced to less than half a million tons.
“This sector must be saved because it represents culture and history for this country,” Díaz-Canel said in a meeting with producers and executives of the sugar industry, according to the Twitter profile of the Presidency.
The 2021-2022 harvest only produced 53% of the initially planned plan of 911,000 tons, the state group Azcuba recently detailed to the official newspaper Granma.
Export plans were not achieved -mainly to China- projected at about 411,000 tons
Of the 36 plants that participated in the harvest, which ended on May 20, only three fulfilled their production plan.
Export plans were also not achieved -mainly to China- projected at some 411,000 tons.
In this scenario, Díaz-Canel called for “doing things differently, with the resources we have,” while pointing out that “process, technological, and organizational innovation must be done.”
He added at this Saturday’s meeting that “we must take advantage of all the possibilities we have and evaluate each alternative to generate electricity in the plants with the use of biomass in times of no harvest.”
“If a sector has the potential to stop technological involution, it is the sugar sector,” he said, quoted by the Presidency.
In that same meeting, the president of the state sugar industry group (Azcuba), Julio García, mentioned that there are “22 problems that impact the operation of the agribusiness,” but did not specify what they are.
Many of the problems of low yield are due to lack of fuel, rubber, fertilizers, and even excess moisture.
The group itself has reiterated on other occasions that many of the low yield problems are due to the lack of fuel, rubber, fertilizers, and even excess moisture.
Azcuba announced that 26 mills will grind in the next 2022-2023 harvest “those with the best conditions” and underlined the intention of guaranteeing the sugar that is delivered in the standardized family basket to each family.
The delivery of sugar is about 2.5 kilograms per month per person through the ration card, in force since 1962.
Cuba had 156 operating 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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