He is a quiet boy, you almost have to take the words out of his mouth with tweezers. However, when he has to represent young farmers in the National Committee of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), Lionar Martínez Mendoza is another. He arrived there due to the results of his farm La Conchita, belonging to the CCS Dionisio Riandes Cervantes, where he is, in addition, the general secretary of the “Youth” base committee.
Lionar confesses that he is eternally in love with the Cuban fields and the art of making the land produce: «The love for the land comes to me from my grandparents’ family, which is why six years ago I asked for these lands. The first caballeria (13.42 hectares) was given to me by Decree Law 300, the rest by 311. I dedicate myself purely to livestock, although I also have various crops.
This farmer not only has his feet on the ground; He also reflects and searches, perhaps empirically, for the causes of a real and very dangerous phenomenon for the future of food production in Cuba. «In the mountains there are very few young people like me; The main cause is migration to cities, seeking improvement. I say it from what I see around me: here, near me, there are very few boys left.
«That is why I accepted to be a member of the National Committee of the UJC, to be able to bring the concerns and concerns of the farmers, how they think and what young people in the sector like in our time, and how they want to carry out their life project in our country. .
«I’m still here because I’m doing what I like, I grew up in this world and it’s what I always wanted to be; “But we cannot deny that producing at this time is very difficult, fundamentally due to the lack of inputs and other products that we need for livestock and agriculture, but we cannot let what we have fall.”
In this world you can not only listen to elite or established producers, it is also healthy to get to talk to those who are just starting out, with those who, perhaps, do not deliver more than one hundred liters a day, but aspire to reach those levels. figures and know your needs. Lionar is one of those who does not give up in the effort to grow.
«The key right now is to maintain livestock farming, try not to give up space and wait for the country’s situation to improve to grow and develop. The pastures need chemicals, for example; That has to be imported to be able to fumigate, and to have grass instead of marabou. “There has to be wire to be able to fence and fence to rotate the land, and improve its efficiency.”
In La Conchita, 20 liters are currently produced per day, but they hope to accumulate more in the spring to reach their plan of 10,000 liters for the year. «Now that milk has a good price, plus the over-fulfillment, which can be up to 70 pesos in the dry stage, motivates us to grow more every day.
“These latest measures greatly benefit producers, and have come to accelerate the much-needed livestock recovery in Cuba.”
This is said by a boy who fights, from dawn to dusk, with several heads of cattle on 26 hectares of land, and who claims to already have 18 heifers ready, for next year to start the campaign better. «You can always do a little more; “The only thing we need is to have the desire to do what we like, and put our heart into it.”
