Photo: Luis Jiménez Echevarría
Havana, May 17 (RHC)-- As Cuba celebrates Farmers' Day and the 66th anniversary of the first Agrarian Reform Law, the 13th Congress of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) concludes on Satruday in Havana.
Inaugurated the day before, the meeting aims to share practices and adopt strategies to increase agricultural production and, thus, channel government efforts aimed at achieving food sovereignty.
Distributed across three committees, 397 delegates debated the organization's structural strengthening, its political work, and productive and economic issues.
The Association's work is vital to carrying out food projects and programs on the government's agenda, prioritized with the goal of reversing the current difficult economic situation.
ANAP members, usufructuaries, owners, tenants, and peasant families manage 45 percent of the arable land in the Caribbean country. They are mandated to prioritize exportable crops, such as tobacco, coffee, cocoa, honey, and charcoal.
They are also tasked with increasing harvests of rice, beans, corn, and other import-substituting products, undertaking major efforts to restore livestock farming, and increasing the planting of plantains, cassava, sweet potatoes, taro, grains, fruit trees, and short-cycle crops.
These topics were the focus of the interventions of the meeting participants, who emphasized the need to increase sugarcane production, efficiently manage the land, and protect livestock.
Several producers presented their results based on the application of science and agroecology, the use of bioproducts, and animal attraction, and expressed their willingness to share their experiences.
There was also consensus that the U.S. government's economic blockade hinders the nation's agricultural and livestock growth, but it does not contribute to inefficiencies associated with organizational or subjective problems.
During the final day, the Congressional report, the organization's new bylaws, and the election of its National Committee are scheduled.
This Friday marks the 66th anniversary of the signing of the first Agrarian Reform Law by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.
The legislation outlawed large estates and nationalized more than 402 hectares, most of which were in the hands of US companies, which were then handed over to tens of thousands of peasants.
The signature was signed exactly 13 years after the assassination of peasant leader Niceto Pérez by large landowners, an event that served as one of the foundations for the creation of ANAP on May 17, 1961.
[ SOURCE: PRENSA LATINA ]
