A Regional Station of INIVIT in Contramaestre

Agriculture is the mainstay of the Contramaestre municipality in southeastern Cuba. This is why the National Institute for Tropical Crop Research (INIVIT) has decided to open a regional station that serves Cuba’s five easternmost provinces: Las Tunas, Granma, Holguín, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo.

Mario de Jesús Alarcón Mok, Director of the INIVIT Contramaestre Station, founded on January 25, 1998, informs that the main purpose of the station in the eastern region is the technological diffusion aimed at the sustainability and competitiveness of the productive chains of root and tuber crops such as yucca and sweet potato as well as of aerial crops such as banana and papaya.

This INIVIT station is also in charge of training producers in using new technological advances and new products, that is, new cultivars and varieties.

The technical staff of the Station evaluates in situ each situation so that the technology is not applied arbitrarily, but taking into account the conditions of the soil, the climate, the way of attending to the crops: irrigation, machinery. And it is the producer who decides which technology will be applied.
The staff of the INIVIT Contramaestre Station is made up by 4 agronomists with the category of researchers, who work on another important activity which is to prevent and eradicate pests and diseases in the five eastern provinces of the country, always respecting the environment.

When Mario was asked about the results of the Station’s work, he replied that:

“To have achieved a close link with the productive forms of the base, to have trained the producers to obtain new clones and varieties adapted to the current edafoclimatic conditions and integral technology that allow to attenuate pests and diseases. And to have succeeded in taking technology transfer to the micro level.”
The agriculture official added that “the Station has received several national, provincial and municipal acknowledgements for the successes achieved in training and in applying science.

The INIVIT Contramaestre Station maintains close relations with institutions such as the Central Coffee Station, the Citrus Technology Dissemination Group and the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences (INCA).

A Canadian NGO financed projects in the Popular Councils of Bungo-La Venta, here in Contramaestre, and in Palmarito in the municipality of Mella, thus contributing to the materialization of the Station’s objectives in those territories.

Written by Radio Grito de Baire