Contramaestre’s Peasants Get Vegetables Back on Track

The more than 3,000 peasants and cooperative workers in Contramaestre, a municipality in the south of eastern Cuba, are aware of the priority they face in food production. In particular, vegetables and other nutritional assortments, included in the urban, suburban and family agriculture movement.

In this municipality of the province of Santiago de Cuba, it has not been a secret for a long time, that the peasant intends his crops towards diversity and that bets on ecological crops in search of greater health for those who consume tropical food, grains, fruits and vegetables.

That is why the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) is interested in reviving the vegetable production in agricultural production cooperatives and in those of credit and services.

The objective is to increase the production of food but at the same time to contribute to this municipality obtaining the condition of National Reference of the urban, suburban and familiar agriculture, by demonstrating that it works to guarantee the self-supply.

This effort also involves other agencies that make up the popular movement and today it includes the thirteen popular councils that this territory has.

Contramaestre currently holds the status of candidate municipality for National Reference in urban, suburban and family agriculture, a category that precedes the highest award for which there must be a representation of all subprograms covering this form of food production in localities near residential areas.

The goal is achievable, as there are high potentials in this municipality where the peasant movement contributes 80 percent of food production to the province of Santiago de Cuba, from the 34 existing cooperatives here.

Written by Angel Del Toro Fonseca