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Reducing imports a priority for Cuban
agriculture
Yudy Castro Morales &
Lorena Sánchez
Integrated projects to generate productive chains
and replace imports are being promoted to foreign
investors at the International Trade Fair underway
in Havana (FIHAV 2014) by Cuba’s food processing,
forestry, and sugar industries.
Yamila Quintana Medina, specialist in management and
cooperation at the Ministry of Agriculture,
emphasized the favorable conditions existent in Cuba
to support foreign investment in agriculture and
forestry.
Among these factors, she mentioned the availability
of land; the potential for increasing yields with
more irrigation; the country’s well established
phytosanitary and meat handling system; as well as
the advantages offered by the island’s geographic
location, and its highly qualified workforce.
Featured in the portfolio of opportunities for this
sector are proposals to establish joint operations
in the cultivation of rice, peanuts, fruit, coffee,
cocoa, as well as livestock and poultry farming.
In
the forestry sector, Quintana Medina described a
project to utilize biomass generated during land
clearing to produce charcoal, and proposals to
expand tree farming, principally in the provinces
Ciego de Ávila, Camagüey, Holguín and Granma.
Yolanda Cáceres Rodríguez, president of Cuba’s food
processing state enterprise, Coralsa S.A., reported
that foreign investment is being sought to generate
efficient productive chains, develop processing
infrastructure, and thus reduce imports.
Prioritized, she reported, are the production of
soybean oil and chocolate, as well as prepared
breakfast foods, soft drinks, pasta, condiments and
the expansion of shrimp farming.
Jorge Lodos, business director of Zerus, affiliated
with the state sugar enterprise group Azcuba,
emphasized projects in this sector to modernize
mills and improve the quality of sugar products.
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