With a growing trend in the use of agroecological practices in the last five years, the province of Ciego de Ávila achieves effectiveness in the control of pests in crops and favors the protection of the environment by reducing the use of chemical products.

The increase in the production of biopesticides (entomopathogens and entomophages) supplies the deficit of chemical products existing in the country, responds to the prevailing climatic conditions and helps to maintain the ecological balance in the fields.

The engineer Raúl Hernández Martínez, specialist in Biological Control of the Provincial Directorate of Plant Health in Ciego de Ávila, stressed that biopesticides are used in all the productive bases of the territory, mainly in the companies La Cuba, Arnaldo Ramírez and El Mambí; the agricultural production cooperatives (CPA by its Spanish initials) Revolución de Octubre and Paquito González, farms of the Agroindustrial Company D’Ceballos, organoponics, and tobacco and pineapple plantations.

"Its use has had a favorable impact by achieving 65% effectiveness in the control and regulation of pests that affect mainly crops of grains, viands, fruits, vegetables, tobacco and sugar cane" the own source highlighted.

The territory of Ciego de Ávila has 11 entomopathogens and entomophages reproduction centers (CREE by its Spanish initials), distributed in eight of the ten municipalities of the province, with 11 production lines of bacteria, fungi, viruses and beneficial insects that intervene in the control and regulation of pests in plantations.

Nowadays, they are working in the construction and start-up of a new CREE in the Cubasoy Company and there are projections of creating another, on a large scale, in the D’Ceballos Agroindustrial Company. During the current year, production lines have been set up in centers that have capacity in their facilities.

“Not only in the state sector but also in the non-state one, the demands for these products show a growing behavior, with volumes exceeding 180 metric tons (MT) during the different sowing campaigns, however, the productions do not exceed 105 MT, therefore, we resort to the biopreparations of the Labiofam Company (Nicosave and Turisave), the NioNim (obtained in the province of Holguín, from the neem tree) and other alternatives such as the use of lime and cardon," Hernández Martínez added.

During the last years in Ciego de Ávila farms, 18 pests have been identified in crops, whose regulation and control has been achieved fundamentally with the use of biopesticides, a widespread practice to achieve sustainability, resilience and sovereignty in food production.