It is necessary to sow more, but also to harvest more; there are crops on which it is necessary to continue working to achieve greater or superior results. In the case of tobacco, for example, today an average of just over one ton per hectare is obtained, and it is necessary to reach two tons.
These were comments made by the Second Secretary of the Party Central Committee, José Ramón Machado Ventura, during a tour of productive areas in several municipalities of Pinar del Río.
Machado, also a vice president of the Councils of State and Ministers, warned that more important than increasing productive areas, is to raise agricultural yields. We have to use the land well, and make the most of it, he said.
The visit included plantations of tobacco and various other crops, where the leader was able to appreciate the use of modern technologies that allow greater efficiency and energy carrier savings.
Among them, the new Virginia tobacco curing chambers, located in Julián Alemán Basic Unit of Cooperative Production (UBPC), in the municipality of Consolación del Sur, which work with renewable energy sources.
Machado inquired as to the useful life of equipment and facilities that can run on rice straw, sawdust, or firewood, and thus considerably reduce the use of fuel, something that up to now has made production significantly more expensive.
He also exchanged with agricultural workers of the UBPC on the importance of systematically employing science and technology, and of creating the conditions to be able to fulfill productive commitments, independently of the behavior of the climate.
We will have moments in which it will rain a lot and others in which there will be drought, but the plans must be guaranteed, he stressed.
The tour also included areas of the Los Palacios Agro-Industrial Grains Enterprise, in which Machado witnessed the leveling of rice fields using laser and GPS technology, and the progress of this crop in one of the main cultivation areas in the country.
Another site visited was a former citrus processing plant, belonging to the Enrique Troncoso Agro-Industrial Enterprise, where Machado inquired about the alternatives to take advantage of this facility in other areas such as tomato and mango processing, in order to be able to respond to the growth of these crops in the province.
(Granma)