Why do not cattle breeders sow the food that their animals need? What support do the different organizations in Las Tunas give to these producers? What are the causes of the low birth rate? How many analyses are made of cattle deaths?
Las Tunas, Cuba - With these and other questions, Vice Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca favored the debate in a meeting he chaired to analyze the main indicators of livestock farming in the province and the individual and collective obstacles that prevent the consolidation of the activity.
"The root of the problem is that many times we work with the numbers and not with the producers. They are the main factor to obtain more milk and meat and towards them, we have to direct the actions of the Electric and Insurance companies, the Banking sector, Hydraulic Resources, Housing, and other agencies."
"All problems cannot be solved in one day, but little by little it is possible. What is certain is that there can be no cattle ranching by tying up the animals when evening falls, many times without water or food. We have to put an agricultural extension at the side of the tenants, look for seeds and train them."
Today, the territory has a complicated situation with the raising of large livestock. To illustrate this statement, it is enough to say that so far this year more than 11,500 deaths have been reported and that the birth rate is barely 41 percent of what was planned.
So far, meat and milk delivery plans have not been fulfilled and the contracting of production corresponding to the year 2023 barely reaches 14 percent, which is a direct responsibility of the Meat and Dairy Products companies.
For this reason, Tapia Fonseca considered that the solution is a greater link with the cattle holders, that there be unity around them to solve their problems, and, above all, that analyses be made with the defaulters and that before the end of the year the serious non-payments be liquidated, both in Cuban pesos and in freely convertible currency.
He said that there is a lack of integrity and energetic action by many factors, especially by the leaders of the agricultural activity, who do not count the cattle mass and lack a diagnosis producer by producer, which causes some calf births are not registered in the livestock control records.
For legal purposes, this is a crime. So is the theft and slaughter of livestock, a problem in the eight municipalities of Tunas, which up to October alone has taken some 2,580 animals out of the reproductive and productive cycles.
This issue was addressed by a dozen of private and state cattle farmers who attended the meeting and committed to producing under any circumstances, but victims of such events, carried out by groups of individuals who threaten, steal, and sometimes do not receive the condemnation they deserve.
Also present at the meeting, the Minister of Agriculture, Ydael Pérez Brito, pointed out the lack of demand and control on the part of those responsible for the activity and said that the excess of bureaucracy has prevented the 63 measures approved to invigorate the agricultural productions from being known.
He added that these provisions are to enamor the producers and specifically referred to the fact that the number of credits that can be granted by the bank to eradicate the marabou in cattle raising areas is still not known and that, out of more than nine thousand owners, only 256 animals are being slaughtered.
At the end of the meeting, the Governor of Las Tunas, Jaime Chiang Vega, said that the success lies in solving the management problems, starting 2023 without debts, and eradicating the difficulties. For his part, Reynaldo Luis Rivero Álvarez, a member of the Provincial Bureau of the Cuban Communist Party, pointed out that the livestock program decides the development of the territory and must be improved promptly.
