President Miguel Díaz-Canel advocated this Monday to strengthen relations with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) when meeting with its deputy director general, Mario Lubetkin, on a visit to the island.
«I expressed the will to continue strengthening the historic relations of cooperation between that organization and Cuba. I reiterated my gratitude for the accompaniment to our goal of achieving food sovereignty,” Díaz-Canel wrote on Twitter.
He also thanked the regional representative of the FAO for Latin America and the Caribbean for the joint work carried out by his country and that entity for years, as well as his support to develop the strategy of the food sovereignty and nutrition education program, according to a report by the Presidency.
Lubetkin began a two-day visit to Cuba on Monday with the aim of “strengthening and consolidating” the work with the Government to advance the food and nutrition security agenda, the FAO said in a statement.
As part of his agenda in Havana, Luvetkin exchanged with the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca, to explore opportunities for cooperation in the area of food security and the environment.
Lubetkin previously visited Panama, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, with a program that began with his participation in the 63rd edition of the Annual Meeting of the Boards of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in mid-March.
In addition, he participated in the XXVIII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, in the Dominican Republic, where a strategy for the region to achieve food security was proposed, with the promotion of intra-regional trade and the development of supply chains.
The Cuban government, which approved a Food Security Law in 2022, admitted that “Cuban agriculture does not achieve the production levels necessary to satisfy the demand for products for different destinations.”
Cuba imports 80% of the food it consumes, according to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).
Agriculture Minister Ydael Pérez acknowledged that 2021 was one of the worst years for food production in the last decade, even for iconic Cuban crops such as sugar and tobacco.
At present, barely 48.7% of arable land is planted in Cuba.
