“After eight months paralyzed by serious difficulties with imported raw materials, the start-up of the 50th anniversary Creole dry feed factory, located in the capital city of Ciego de Ávila, constitutes a significant step towards the return of pork in the province”. Statement made by Melvys Martín Jiménez, director of the Authorized Food Base Business Unit (UEB), belonging to the Pig Company (EP) of Ciego de Ávila.
After a long list of limitations, the EP from Ciego de Ávila makes its way from very low, so much so that, of 260 pig agreements that it had months ago, at this moment, it only has two. There was no food to fatten the pig mass, nor is there enough for everyone if, right now, they decide to re-hire, because getting up also involves reproducing the well-known "national mammal." In June 2020, 85 percent of provincial production was in the hands of the private sector, so let us imagine the collapse.
What strategies with their own solutions can be adopted to guarantee pig feed? What internal obstacles persist in the incentive to obtain pork in Ciego de Ávila? How to minimize the matrix of imported feed now restricted to negligible levels due to the effects of COVID-19?
The sprouting of the "50th anniversary", affected like all related units by the effects of COVID-19 and the economic blockade of the United States against Cuba, is due to the implementation of the 43 measures. Actions to strengthen the socialist state company, whose positive impact lies in granting greater autonomy to directors, creating competent groups and stimulating productions with efficient resource management.
Since last April 27, the raw materials of the takeoff began to enter: national corn, soybeans and bran, from the peasant sector, cooperatives, the Cubasoy Agricultural Company, the Cienfuegos and Guantánamo feed industries. If before these ingredients of the composition were imported, at present, only the additives, that is, other products used in the mixture, are bought abroad by the Livestock Business Group.
The director of the UEB has in her favor "support from her suppliers", which she considers is not transitory and has variations in prices, which are still high. "We need to expand and continue to buy local raw materials." It could be thought that the reality of the Ciego de Ávila PE has been inverted and, instead of being the brake the food for the pigs (which put it in the considerable downturn), now it is the insufficient customers.
For this reason, Rogelio García García, deputy director of the EP, reports “the Livestock Business Group, to which they belong as one of its divisions, called for support for the manufacture of feed in other provinces at a disadvantage with raw materials. And we do it because, right now, we don't take on as many producers."
Melvys Martín Jiménez confirms this: “In this factory there is room for about 400 tons (t) between corn, soybeans and bran. The demand today is low. Only two days of production have been sold, in which 27 t of B feed were obtained. And, in one day, up to 40 t can be achieved”. While she thinks that, she has nowhere to store and the demand is below the supply, in other times the warehouse emptied quickly.
However, Wilfredo Guerra Quesada, Director of Productions of the EP, puts on the table one more link in the long chain. “This process is slow, because you have to gradually recover the pig mass. We have to rescue the breeders and develop the sale of pre-fattening by agreements. For this concept, 300 pre-fattening have been delivered exclusively to two producers (in the main municipalities and Florencia). Without pigs, there are no new contracts, and without those contracts, where does this food go?
He answers himself later, when he speaks of a current debt of 3,510.6 t of pig feed among 75 productive bases in the territory. According to Guerra Quesada, if this rate is maintained in the three feed mills in the province, in the remainder of the year, some 2,000.0 t must be sold to pig farmers, whose meat was consumed long ago. The process of re-hiring producers has, crossed, a debt.
At least two months' worth of raw materials are stored in the newly revived “50th anniversary” factory, Melvys says. A small industry, similar to that one, is added in the municipality of Ciro Redondo and that of liquid feed, located in El Azufre, Popular Council of Jicotea, which, not without difficulties, have remained active.
Whenever Wilfredo and his team "throw the hook" to potential hires in the future, it must be clear that there can be no room for stumbling or false expectations, because it would mean hitting the same big stone twice, which led to many to leave pigsties or put their activity on pause.
Nor is it that Malvys throws in a bag how many measures —of the 43 approved to strengthen the business system in Cuba— are of any use to her, because, although it is not her job, she advances if the 63 measures approved to stimulate agriculture also advance, which require the efforts of the agencies of the Central State Administration and local governments. Seen this way, the feeding of the pig depends on not losing sight of the furrow.
“We don't think this will go down in a few months. What is needed is for the producers to join in, because the food is guaranteed”, assures the experienced worker, who has put her potential to good use as head of the UEB. The revealing thing about the start is given in the inclusion of feed B in the animal's diet, which has a local stamp wherever we look.
That the producers join this "return of pork meat" goes through the analysis of the three modalities that are offered for the agreements, aimed at those who fatten their own animals or acquire them (pre-fattening) by the EP. It happens that, without giving them all the necessary food, during the agreed months, the price of a pound of meat offered by the EP to pig farmers —although there is talk of kilograms— is still below what was invested.
In essence, if we aspire to create an intensive breeding system, in the midst of extremely depressed pig production, we need our genetics, feed and raw materials. On the other hand, strengthen the contracting of crop, industrial and processed food waste entities, and the use of natural resources.
In 2020, colleague Alden Hernández Díaz wrote: “Yandira Sánchez Fuentes, director of the Pork Company in the province, does not dare to predict a recovery in the short term; for her, the first highlights would be noticeable from 2022, and as of that date, the bet is on the sustainability of the basic mass”. That's where “the thing” goes, almost in the middle of the almanac.
It is necessary to wake up, but when Rogelio García García reiterates that efforts are being made to recover that basic mass, I imagine that the path to reach the table will be long and deep. Otherwise, we will continue to be far from satisfying the demands of the national economy and the materialization of the monthly per capita of about five kilograms of protein products.
Besides, the platforms will continue to wait for the availability of pork, which is sold in small quantities at the City Park fairgrounds at 180.00 pesos a pound, according to the EP, while on the street the amount is fattened up to around 250.00.