“Sixty-one years after the first massive land distribution in the Pinar del Rio town of Las Martinas, to put an end to the plantation system, the Cuban Revolution is proud of its small farmers…You have done your part and will continue to do so with the same dignity as always and with full awareness of the moment the Revolution is experiencing.”
These were among the words of José Ramón Machado Ventura, second secretary of the Party Central Committee, during provincial annual review assemblies of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), in Mayabeque and Pinar de Río, in preparation for the organization’s XII Congress.
Machado Ventura continued in Pinar del Río: “That (land) was yours and it was usurped by the system that prevailed in the country,” recalling Fidel’s insistence on advancing in implementation of the Agrarian Reform Law, after the awarding of these first property titles, March 1, 1959.
“Every day you confront the hardships imposed by the U.S. government’s blockade, which seeks to starve our people, but the will of the men and women of the countryside is to overcome these obstacles and produce greater volumes of food, vegetables, grains and fruit,” he stated in Mayabeque, a young province that plays a key role in feeding Havana.
José Ramón Monteagudo Ruiz, member of the Central Committee Secretariat, and Enrique Santiesteban Pozo, ANAP president and member of the Council of State, participated in both assemblies, along with authorities of both provinces.