HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 16 (ACN) A few hours before the start of the 2021-2022 Rice Campaign, three of the 14 agro-industrial grain companies in the country report their first sowings, they are Sur del Jibaro, in Sancti Spritus(central region); Fernando Echenique, in Granma(eastern) and Aguada, in Cienfuegos(central region).
Engineer Oslando Linares Morell, director of the Rice Divison of the Agricultural Group, informed the Cuban News Agency that the planting plan for the campaign amounts to 129,471 hectares, distributed among all the companies that also serve the cooperative and farmer sector.
With these cultivated areas, it is expected to produce about 228,000 tons of rice, which represent about 38% of what the country needs to supply domestic demand and reduce imports, so far essential for Cuba, Linares Morell pointed out.
To achieve this, the executive insisted on the need to use the diversity of Cuban varieties – those best adapted to the soil conditions of each territory – and to use water, inputs and machinery efficiently.
Linares highlighted the experience of producers and the science that exists in the rice industry, the combination of which constitutes a strategy to gradually increase agricultural yields and grain quality (5 tons per hectare in 2023 and 6 with the consolidation of the Integrated Rice Development Program scheduled for 2030).
The researchers also valued the projections for 2022, with the objective of continuing to advance in the introduction and generalization of the results of science in production.
