Until a little more than a month ago, in the feed factory, belonging to the Pork Company of the province of Las Tunas, the workers in charge of processing cassava worked non-stop and the results were hardly visible.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- They had a small mill that was not enough. The workers were active all day long and many times the tuber decomposed and was no longer useful. On other occasions, they went to private mills, where they paid 30 pesos for grinding each quintal.

Las Tunas, Cuba: Fortunately, the collective always strives to find solutions to produce more animal food and thus help the country's economy. That is why they turned to technological innovation and the talent of Litzán Fernández Pupo, who is in charge of maintenance at the unit.

"I was given the task of doing something to facilitate the cassava milling process; in other words, some innovation, because the equipment we had was very small. I started to search among the resources left over from the old factory and I put together a mill that grinds ten tons in one day."

"That was manufactured in a short time and it took longer because I had to take parts to a lathe, although I assembled it practically by myself. I used little ball boxes, bearings, and shafts. I did not use the new stuff and luckily, it has no breaks. In fact, in two weeks it milled more than 800 quintals."

"This is a small collective and we can already see the progress because the economy has favored us. That is the idea, to innovate to improve the processes, doing things that humanize the work because it is not the same to grind and grind all day long as to put into this big mill. Innovation does solve."

The current economic limitations, due to the tightening of the U.S. blockade against Cuba and the Covid-19 epidemic, have created difficulties in many activities. In the face of these difficulties, the creative spirit of the workers and the will to solve problems with local solutions have prevailed.