CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

Suburban Agriculture Expanding in Cuba.

CUBA, January 13th, 2011.- All eight municipalities of the eastern province of Las Tunas joined the National Program of Suburban Agriculture developed on the island to foster agricultural growth in the cities’ peripheral areas.

José Artelles, with the Urban and Suburban Agriculture Provincial Office, stated that the capital city Las Tunas was the first one to join the program out of 17 cities selected across the country for a first stage of the initiative launched in January, 2010.

According to the specialist, 156 of all 169 municipalities of the country, which meet the required conditions, are expected to participate in the national program.

Artelles said suburban agriculture is a new branch of the National Program for Urban Agriculture consisting of fostering cultivation and stockbreeding in areas around cities and towns in a 2-10 Kilometer radius.

The main objective of the program is to bring agricultural productions closer to the population, save fuel and other resources in the transportation of such production and generally contribute to the Cuban effort to develop a more economic and sustainable agriculture system.

The program is based on the use of animal traction for both cultivation work and transportation to the markets, the use of organic fertilizers and other ecological practices.

Cuba has an area of nearly 11 million hectares, of which 6.6 million are considered agricultural areas. However, according to the National Statistics Office, only about 3 million hectares were cultivated in 2008, while more than 2 million were devoted to stockbreeding and pasture; the rest of the land was idle.

For that reason, the Cuban government decided to implement some actions to make better use of the land faced with the need to increase food production and progressively reduce  increasingly-expensive food imports. (Cubaminrex-Cuban News Agency)

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