The vice president of the Republic of Cuba, Salvador Valdés Mesa, assured that the current sugar contest would test the ability of the workers of the Ciro Redondo plant to increase efficiency, after the investment of 93 million pesos that turned that Ciego de Ávila industry into the most modern of its kind in the country.
In this campaign, it has the commitment to produce 62 000 tons of sugar, "a tough test for this plant and its workers, who must be informed about the relevance of meeting the goal to promote economic and social development," the member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party stressed.
Located in the fourth level of automation, a guarantee for the humanization of work and productive efficiency, the entity must accompany technological modernization with the progressive increase in the preparation of personnel and develop actions to achieve their permanence, he said.
He reflected on the importance of developing sugarcane productions in the short term, using science to identify the most appropriate varieties in correspondence with the characteristics of the soils, water availability, climate variations and resistance to diseases.
“If there is sugar, we will have sugar mills and there will be a harvest to develop a sector that is considered strategic for the progress of the national economy and is committed to providing significant income to the country, in addition to being part of the culture and identity of the nation due to its permanence. for more than 200 years ”, he highlighted.
In the particular case of the Ciro Redondo Agroindustrial Company, it has the challenge of producing the grass necessary to carry out 180-day harvests, which requires planting another 25 000 hectares, of which 12 000 would be under irrigation systems, he clarified.
Valdés Mesa emphasized that the sugar industry in the country is called upon to diversify its productions to achieve the desired recovery, therefore, in addition to raw and refined sugar, honeys, torula, alcohols, bagasse cartons and other derivatives; it must venture into production of food for human and animal consumption.
He called for the development of animal husbandry, planting of various crops and the manufacture of construction materials, which will contribute to achieve economic efficiency, added to the export of sugar and other derivatives of cane.
The freed lands from marabou to supply the Bioelectric plant, recently synchronized to that factory, should be used to harvest food, so that it is also taxed to comply with the Food Sovereignty and Nutrition Education Program, he entrusted.
The Cuban vice president insisted that the highest authorities of the municipality and the province must accompany the agro-industrial sugar companies in the execution of these transformations and in the sugar disputes, with priority in the attention of the workers.
"A central is an emporium of wealth, therefore, we must not settle," he emphasized.
He also referred to the social obligation of agroindustrial sugar companies with local development, from which he learned that Ciro Redondo has the commitment to contribute in the current year about seven million pesos to the municipal coffers.
During his stay, he toured different areas of the Bioelectric Plant, the first of its kind in the country and with a contribution of 35 megawatts to date, after the first part was synchronized with the sugar mill, which represents an advance in terms of energy sovereignty.
He inquired about the strategies that are developed to ensure the biomass necessary for the operation of that industry, whose essential raw material should be the bagasse of sugar cane (70 percent). The rest of the needs will be covered with marabou and, to a lesser extent, with the so-called energy forests, planned to be developed with eucalyptus and casuarina plantations, to the extent that the availability of resources allows it.
