Cuba plans to reach this year about 10 thousand hectares of tobacco under irrigation with renewable sources, a strategy aimed at reducing dependence on the National Electric System (SEN) in the midst of the energy crisis and guarantee the stability of the main exportable sector of agriculture.
José Liván Font, first vice president of the Tabacuba Business Group, explained to Granma that the initiative responds to the impact that extensive power outages have had on plantations, particularly in areas where irrigation depends on the SEN.
In Pinar del Río, the main producing territory, more than 5 thousand hectares operate with electric irrigation, which has limited planting at the optimal times of the agricultural calendar, according to the manager.
To face these circumstances, Tabacuba has temporarily resorted to generating sets and mobile photovoltaic systems, in addition to “the protection of electrical circuits in the morning hours that allow ensuring the irrigation essential for planting.”
However, Font stressed that experience has confirmed the need for a structural change in the sector’s energy matrix, since “life has told us that we must migrate to other energy sources.”
In this context, the Group is carrying out an investment that includes the ongoing installation of 320 new pumping systems powered by solar panels and the upcoming entry into the country of another thousand pieces of equipment.
In December, Osvaldo Santana Vera, provincial coordinator of Tabacuba, detailed to Granma that more than a thousand electric irrigation positions covered some 4,840 hectares.
Meanwhile, the urgency of the ongoing sowing forces immediate solutions, when ten mobile photovoltaic irrigation equipment, with 10 kW peak and a capacity of 22 liters per second, will cover 150 hectares in nine companies in the territory.
According to the report, the panels rotate on their own following the sun and are moved by tractor, while fifteen mobile generator sets will power 58 high-power pumps and protect another 800 hectares.
Tobacco, which generates most of Cuba’s agricultural exports, thus receives urgent support, first with emergency measures and then with a definitive transition to clean energy that frees it from the constant electricity deficit in the country.
The recent tobacco campaign in the municipality of Consolación del Sur, in the province of Pinar del Río, closed with serious damage due to the prolonged blackouts suffered by the country.
More than 385 hectares of tobacco lost in Pinar del Río due to prolonged blackouts
Authorities of the Integral and Tobacco Company in the territory reported at the end of June that just over 385 hectares were lost due to the impossibility of irrigating the plantations due to power outages, the newspaper reported. Guerrilla.
The lack of electricity affected all varieties of tobacco planted equally, although with a greater impact on the second-grade meadows of the Sol skewered type and in the areas dedicated to Virginia tobacco. Just over 1,500 hectares were planted, but it was not possible to meet the initial commitments.
“We estimate an impact at a rate of half of the contract, which means 0.6 tons per hectare. Therefore, only 1,301 tons have been produced, compared to a plan of 1,778,” said Mario Luis Zamora Medina, general director. As a result, the company collected around 1.99 million cujes (bundles of cured leaves), just 79% of what was planned.
