CAMAGÜEY.-The Urban, Suburban and Family Agriculture program in Camagüey promotes the production of vegetable seeds to maintain the crops of such highly demanded products in the territory, after almost two years without the country being able to import them. Among those collected and benefited, to date, they already add a little more than 800 kilograms of seeds, which represents almost 50 percent of what they demand for the year.
As Javier Rodríguez Guerrero, head of the aforementioned program, informed Adelante.cu, the territory today has the seeds of lettuce, chard, cucumber, okra and beans. “We are working on rescuing the red and white radish because we had problems with germination and multiplying the NK6 carrot in the El Huerto farm, owned by the producer Leonardo Basulto Rojas, associate of the Cándido González Morales Credit and Services Cooperative in the provincial capital. This farmer is possibly the first in Cuba who managed to get the seeds of this variety, which flourishes very well in the weather conditions of the province. In 2020, it removed 4.2 kilograms of it, ”he assured.
Rodríguez Guerrero commented that the 11 municipal farms belonging to Urban Agriculture play an important role in this strategy. Only Najasa and Sibanicú do not have them. "Today the lack of irrigation systems, essential to have well-developed crops, threatens the optimal use of these plots. It is also oriented that in each organoponic plant at least two beds are destined to harvest seeds, that gives us independence and in the moments that the country lives we cannot stop producing ”.
The Urban, Suburban and Family Agriculture program in the province also encourages agroecological management, which includes biological control of pests, the use of color and odor traps, organic matter, the planting of live barriers and the use of biofertilizers.
The urban and suburban agriculture movement in the province has 15 Base Business Units (UEB), 14 are dedicated to the cultivation of vegetables mainly and one to the sowing of medicinal plants. The UEBs are made up of some 67 thousand units, among them organoponics, intensive gardens, patios and plots and farms near the population enclaves. The municipalities of Camagüey and Minas are at the forefront of this program in the territory.
Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez