Diaz-Canel calls on municipality officials to have greater weight on food production

Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel-Bermúdez called on the central province of Cienfuegos for greater municipal autonomy, especially in food production, at the end of a tour of all the provinces and the Isle of Youth.

In a meeting attended by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and other top Cuban authorities, Díaz-Canel Bermúdez emphasized that we must give all the powers to the municipality so that the entities that produce food in those localities are of local subordination.

Although this autonomy seeks that the municipalities comply with the national and provincial balance and also cover the demand of their inhabitants, he clarified.

He pointed out how important it is to empower the state-owned company to produce food and to achieve an adequate relationship between state-owned entities and non-state-owned entities.

He referred to the tense situation with inputs for food production, for which producers must rely on national resources such as native fertilizers, the use of science and innovation.

In this regard, Deputy Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca insisted on the untapped potential in Cienfuegos, where, for example, the Vitroplantas Biofactory, with a capacity for one million seedlings, only operates at 40 percent of its capacity.

Food self-sufficiency is not evenly distributed among the eight municipalities, with delays in Lajas, Cruces and Palmira.

Tapia Fonseca added that they must review the effectiveness of the leasing of land and the use they make of it in order to produce more.

He pointed out the good experiences in the progress made with the productive poles and livestock modules, but not in the consolidation of urban agriculture, in which it is necessary to recover the organoponics.

Likewise, Cienfuegos is making progress in the production of animal feed, with the substitution of imported feed, and in the planting of coffee in the plains, but the reforestation of the old coffee plantations still needs to be accelerated.

The recovery of the integral swine centers, as well as the growth of fattening animals and the agreements with producers is a pending task for the Cienfuegos farmers.

This meeting concluded the governmental analysis throughout Cuba of priority issues such as food production, monetary order and the confrontation with COVID-19.