Havana/In Matanzas, the plan for 2025 is to extract 7,000 tons of salt and produce 5,000, but to meet the goal they will have to overcome “the challenges imposed by scarce resources and technological decline” in the province, a euphemism to indicate that the machinery for that work is useless. For now, the path they are betting on is “the dedication of workers to guarantee production.”
According to a note published this Tuesday in the newspaper Gironthe Matanzas Salinera Base Business Unit, located in the northeast of the municipality of Martí, has as a priority recovering the pumping systems and mechanized extraction equipment for the next harvest, scheduled for the months of April and May, the driest and windy.
The newspaper indicated that the work is expected to conclude “this month.” If the machinery is not fixed in time, there is a risk of losing production, since, in Matanzas, the extraction is done through dams that separate the water and from there the salt crystallizes. This requires speed, because in the months with more rain the water dissolves the salt that has formed, as happened last October, when 700 tons of the product were lost due to rainfall.
If the machinery is not fixed in time, there is a risk of losing production, since, in Matanzas, the extraction is done through dams that separate the water and from there the salt crystallizes.
“That is why you have to take advantage of the time and when the salt is crystallized, extract it; The important thing is that it is on the plateau to be able to produce, meet economic indicators and satisfy demand,” Blas Jesús Hernández Santos, director of the salt factory, told the newspaper.
Meanwhile, while the mechanized equipment does not work, “manual extractions will be carried out to obtain the greatest amount of the resource, the result of a long cycle that goes through the phases of evaporation, concentration and crystallization,” added the official, who explained that the The product will be destined for social consumption (organisms), industry and preparations for animal consumption.
Salt, like other products on the Island, has been another source of problems for the authorities, due to its shortage in the pantries of Cuban families in recent years. The one sold on the rationed market has suffered instability in its supply over the last few years and customers complain that most of the time it arrives wet and dirty.
“The important thing is that it is on the plateau to be able to produce, meet economic indicators and satisfy demand”
Cuba, a country surrounded by seawater, in addition to the losses in salt production, has presented problems in distributing it. In Las Tunasthe Puerto Padre salt factory had difficulties in April of last year to transport the product to the rest of the country “due to the lack of cargo transportation”, a problem that has left the population’s tables unsupplied.
A year earlier the same panorama was experienced at the national level. The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, in February 2023, said at that time that there were more than 9,000 tons storeddue to “problems with transportation,” which generated a “deficit in delivery to consumers.” At par, Cubadebate He indicated that several months had passed where “instability is seen in the marketing of salt in the country.”
In 2021 another problem was recorded. The salt then arrived very wet to the pantries of Cubans. Not even the rice that has to be put in the salt shakers to be served could remove the grains. At that time, Jorge Luis Bell Álvarez, director of Ensal, justified that this was because the technology used to centrifuge the salt was not appropriate, but rather the one used in sugar mills.
