Emulating a style typical of the years of the Special Period, the official press de Las Tunas announced this Tuesday with pomp “the end of the decrease” in the production of pork, a formula that recalls the phrase “stop the deterioration” of the 90s.
The official newspaper 26 publishes this Wednesday that the Pork Company of the province closed 2022 with a mass of 5,657 planned pigs, of which 1,460 specimens are breeders. These results make the workers and managers of the institution believe that these are the “first steps towards recovery after a hazardous period.”
However, the same newspaper acknowledges that the sector “is very far” from “increasing meat volumes in a very difficult economic context.” The note admits that pork is still “very little” to meet the demand of families from Las Tunas and lower the heart-stopping prices of this food, which is only found on the tables of a few lucky people.
The Government attributes the deterioration of pig production to the shortage of feed and imported raw material, which makes it difficult for producers to maintain the animals
This led to the availability of pork, the main meat protein of Cuban families, it will collapse 53.5% in 2021 compared to the previous year, with just 132.9 tons. As a consequence, the product is scarce in popular markets and the few places with supplies sell for more than 200 pesos a pound, a prohibitive price for the average Cuban.
The same newspaper acknowledges that the sector “is very far” from “increasing meat volumes in a very difficult economic context”
newspaper 26 points out that there are good “examples” of producers who have managed to overcome the crisis, such as the business unit of La Herradura, in the municipality of Majibacoa, where a group of 37 workers “understood that with their hands they must harvest” crops associated with the sector such as corn , soybean, cassava bean or sweet potato.
The unit has 42 hectares between crops and pastures, where 2,200 animals under its custody are fed, explained Francisco Gómez Ávila, director of the institution. He assured that “they are Creole pigs” resistant to the weather and physically strong. “The best thing is that they eat what is given to them,” he said.
For his part, Ernesto Cruz Pérez, director of the El Bleo business unit, explained to the newspaper that they have sought “numerous alternatives” for “these dark times.” The state company keeps 503 breeding specimens and expects to close this year with 600, but that implies, Cruz Pérez acknowledges, an intense cultivation of sorghum and cassava to prepare the feed concentrate, which is also mixed with waste from the slaughterhouse and sugar cane by-products. sugar.
The director of the unit assured that they currently have 20% of the mass in the feedlot and the volume is expected to increase between May and June, so he does not expect a shortage of pig feed in the short term. According to the official, the genetics of animals crossbreeding with the Yorkland breed has not been neglected.
“The battle is almost won because the breeders have been preserved and compared to 2018, when imported feed began to be scarce, some plantings are available,” adds the newspaper, in a clear allusion to the impossible mission faced by the producers to obtain the necessary inputs for the fattening diet of the pigs.
The crisis in the Las Tunas sector is replicated throughout the territory. The breeders of Villa Clara, the leading province of pork production in Cuba, continue to hope that the Government I paid them a debt of 28,000 pesos from the sale of pigs four years ago.
Excited by the promise of good prices, the peasants of Camajuaní accepted a deal to pay half of what the animals and food were worth. They sold the pigs, well raised and fat, but the Government only gave them half of the agreed part in cash, a producer explained to this newspaper.
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