CAMAGÜEY. - More than 3780 hectares of different cultivation were affected by the passage of the hurricane Irma through this province as Elvis Pérez, Delegate of the Agriculture in the territory informed Adelante.cu.

The damages in this important sector were verified in situ by the President of the Provincial Council of Defense, Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca in a journey for the municipalities of Vertientes, Minas and Nuevitas. In addition, authorities of the Department of the Agriculture and the Councils of Defense of each territory agreed strategies to gather the usable products and offer them with eager willingness to the population.

Preliminary information indicates that the banana with about 2 700ha and the yucca with 581 are the cultivations most affected in Camagüey. In the fertile grounds of Guayabito and the Basic Units of Cooperative Production Jimaguayú and Ignacio Agramonte in Vertientes, Irma was not so cruel with the banana plantations, since a big part of them can be recovered applying techniques of stung and revival plant to plant.

In the productive pole Las Flores (The Flowers) in Nuevitas, which had achieved an important expansion and fame in the last two years for the emplacement of big banana plantations, Irma squashed in domino effect every plant. The community of Camalote, famous in all Cuba for its tasty avocados, lost big part of its harvest and others of papaya and guava. Nevertheless, it is being harvest until the last fruit to classify it and to sell it to the people and to the mini industries for the manufacture of sweets and conserves.

Almost all the farms of the Poultry Company of Camagüey, which are located in Minas - territory that produces 50 % of the eggs destined for the consumption of the population - were seriously damaged in its roofs. For such a motive died 0,06 % of the birds and another number has reduced its production because of the stress. In the place, Tapia Fonseca agreed to sacrifice a part of the aviary to give fresh meat in the days of recovery.

According to Elvis Pérez, the crops of sweet potato, taro and corn are also damaged because of the scourge of the hurricane. The only positive news is that Irma left an average of precipitations of 100 cubic millimeters and the reservoirs are 36 % of its filling, 14 percentage points more than before the meteorological phenomenon, and it is expected that it will keep on increasing.

The principal indications that the specialists' covey left to his step were the replantation of the banana with inserted cords of corn and the plantation of cultivation of short cycle to guarantee the supply of food and fruits in the next months. The authorities of the Ministry of the Agriculture made sure that in the next days, they will send seeds, fertilizers, herbicides and other prime matters to rescue the principal productions in the minor possible time.

However, if something calls the attention in every furrow, from the dark soils of the south up to the red ones of the north, it is the disposition of the peasants to undertake the recovery and to leave behind the crops that Irma spoiled. With axes, machetes and mattocks buried in the mud and under the rain, they do not lose time in that of cleaning the fallen thing and grow the ground again.

Tomorrow several agricultural areas will be covered in the municipalities of Esmeralda, Florida and Sierra de Cubitas, where the situation also is deplorable.

 Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez