Coveted by clients, merchants and informal sellers, the tuber has also been the motive for several crimes on the Island.
14ymedio, Havana, 17 April 2024 — The potato harvest during this year’s campaign in the fields of Artemisa has been a failure. This is admitted by the official press, which reports that of the 5,600 tons projected for harvest in the municipalities of Güira de Melena, San Antonio de los Baños and Alquízar, only 3,600 tons were obtained.
According to the official media El Artemiseño, Miguel Sánchez García, general director of the Agricultural and Forestry Business Group of the province, said that the biggest problem of the harvest was that the 280 hectares (692 acres) planted, of which 270 (667 acres) have been collected, did not yield as expected, and barely 14.5 tons were obtained from each.
However, the manager is clear about the causes of this disaster: “We couldn’t apply the 16 irrigation sprinklers due to the continuous electrical impairments just when the crop needed it most; on top of that, the rains caused rot,” Sánchez said, blaming the country’s energy situation.
Although the potatoes harvested from state seeds complied with the plan, the imported seed did not. There were eight electrical interruptions at the peak of the growing cycle,” he lamented.
During this season, in which Cubans chase after potatoes and pay scandalous prices for them, customers notice not only their quantity but also their quality
The authorities insisted, despite the obvious losses, that in many parts of the province the national average for the potato harvest, which didn’t reach 10 tons per hectare (2.5 a