“The beginning was a bit difficult but everything is ok now. We went through a lot of work to prepare the soil for the plantations and harvest… At some point we had a shortage of seeds and organic material but that has been solved already. Now we are a profitable unit”, says Antonio Ocaña, land owner of the new Pedregal.
I recall once I was showing around some places to a group of Chinese students they told me: “Why is there so much idle land when you can get profits from them?” I came up with a clever strategic explanation; but the truth is that I totally agreed with them.
By rightly exploiting the land we have we could substitute imports and that’s not just the work of large agricultural companies, but it is also the work of small farmers. The Pedregal, in a neighborhood called Camilo Cienfuegos in the municipality of Habana del Este, is a clear example of that. It began as a Basic Unit of Cooperative Production (UBPC by its acronym in Spanish) and went through several stages before becoming a private alternative:
“It used to be a state-owned unit, and the country implemented a strategy… As it was very small… and there were lots of them … and they were unprofitable… it was necessary to make a change. These units employed three or four people. The decision was to create a cooperative that would bring together three production units. We joined the Ana Betancourt Agramonte Credit and Service Cooperative (CCS by its acronym in Spanish) and we became small farmers.”
This alternative has contributed with the development of more dynamic and sustainable agricultural methods. It has a manager, who is the usufructuary of the 5 hectares of land in use and it is part of a private cooperative, self-financed, with bank account and autonomy.
The economic development and the improvement of the producers’ revenues are some of its priorities: “We have a workforce of 8 workers. The average monthly wage is of about 1000 Cuban pesos, depending on production and commercialization. Sometimes the salary is even higher. The Pedregal has proved to be profitable. In winter we harvest all kinds of vegetable… in summer we harvest other products. We are harvesting okra, special lettuce and green beans. We try to achieve sustainability throughout the year. We maintain the production of milk and we honor the production plan of the unit”.
Among the obstacles they had to overcome there is the inefficiency of the watering system and as the Cubans we are we started to make innovations: “We used to have an irrigation system by sprinklers but it was damaging the crops. So we modified the dripping hosepipes. We opened new wholes and we installed micro-sprinklers to create a micro-jet, which creates the mist you see.”
In the limited space these units cover they have improved crops such as banana, guava, lettuce, beans, tomato… The production of animal food is guaranteed taking into account its high nutritional content. Ocaña adds: “We have 5 cows and 36 goats, and although that’s not much we manage to meet production plans. Kingrass is a plant we grow and it is an effective animal food… and moringa is a green protein. When you include them in your diet, you get very good results. Then, we use excrements as organic fertilizer, producing compost and worm humus, we place it in the field and we complete the cycle”.
The products harvested in this unit go to schools, hospitals and hotels. At present, it contributes in a small proportion with the substitution of imports in the country, they pay their taxes in time and have a sale stand for the community where the offer fresh products; that´s what we mean by searching for productivity alternatives.
by Dunia Torres Gonzalez
