Limitations of resources, essential to undertake the planting of sugar cane in the province of Ciego de Ávila, have fundamentally hampered the performance of the spring campaign, with delays impossible to recover for its closure, although some organizational causes also affect the low results.
Eduardo Larrosa Vázquez, director of coordination and technical supervision of the Azcuba Azucarero Group in the province, informed Invasor that until the middle of this month the planting plan was 59 percent complete, since of 5,348 hectares (ha), 3,176 have been planted 8 ha.
The most significant delays are recorded in the Enrique Varona Agro-industrial Sugar Company (EAA), which is 32 percent of what was planned, and in its similar one on January 1st, 53 percent, added the manager.
Likewise, the EAA Ciro Redondo, which had fulfilled its mission until April, currently shows non-compliance, being at 78 percent.
A voluntary work dedicated to the planting of around six hectares of cane on land belonging to the Sabino Pupo Agricultural Production Cooperative, in the municipality of Baraguá, constituted a propitious space to welcome the upcoming celebration of the Provincial Balance Assembly of the Party.
The province has regressed with respect to the sowing stage of the first quarter of the year (which takes place in conjunction with the harvest), although it is still far from ideal, since if that stage finished at 74 percent, to date the downward trend is even greater.
If there was one idea that was central during the meetings held between the highest political authority in the province, representatives of sugarcane cooperatives, directors of Grupo Azucarero Azcuba and companies dedicated to the production of the sweetener in the territory, it was the need to make the most of the conferences to eliminate the delays in cane planting.
Larrosa Vázquez explained that, among the causes of the lands not yet planted, which have been dragging on since the first four months, include the non-release in time of the demolition areas committed to the planting of that stage in the EAA of the territory, delays in the conditioning of the empty areas by the productive bases, the low exploitation of the machinery, and in some moments, the lack of opportunity in the preparation of soils in certain zones.
A strong incidence in the delays has been due to the minimum availability of fuel from April to the present, and also the impossibility of putting the land in motion after it cannot be released, he stressed.However, Larrosa Vázquez commented that there is potential in case the situation is a little more favorable, since: "today there is a quantity of land in movement, ready, that if we deliver the volumes of diesel that the country may have, we could achieve more crops”.
“The spring campaign, which ends on June 30, will be impossible to fulfill due to the delays and the impossibility of sowing. Therefore, all these lands would go through the cold season, in which we would seek a strategy to recover as much as possible in the months of July and August and until September 15, which is when cane is planted in the province, because at the end of September the rains begin to decrease.
The delays also endanger the fulfillment of the year's sowing plan in the province.
As for cultivation and fertilization after cutting, they are at 63 and 68 percent, respectively, also affected by the low availability of fuel, he said. At the same time, manual cleaning and weeding work for the plantations are intensified as the main activities.