While the shortage of food for animals is a constant in Cuba, specialists from the Cuban Vegetable and Tropical Fruit Research Institute (INIVIT) collaborate in the “Yuca Project”, to “reduce the costs of livestock inputs” and generate “alternatives for animal feed production” in the Canary IslandsSpain, reported the local station Northeast Lighthouse.
The study, developed together with the Canary Islands Institute of Agricultural Research (ICIA) and the University without Borders Association (USF) Its main objective is the use of new varieties of cassavato “diversify the production of livestock feed from the use of this reserve root”, while the crisis in Cuba’s fields forces the Government to feed livestock with preparations based on straw and cane honey.
Within the framework of the project, which began June 2023, ICIA replicates the tests carried out by INIVIT on the use of the underground part of cassavaonce converted into flour, as a substitute for cereal in animal feed, and the aerial part of the plant as fodder.
With this objective, Since then, the Canary Islands entity has imported 4,000 cuttings of four varieties of the tuber native to central Cuba., which are grown at Finca El Pico, in Tenerife. Specialists assess its adaptation to the Spanish archipelago and its yields, in order to verify the results of using this plant material in feeding local livestock.
Those involved in the project propose the formulation of balanced and complete diets, using cassava and other ingredients, as well as the evaluation of the final livestock products (milk, cheese, meat and eggs), with the permanent support of Cuban scientists. This happens while the Government of Havana recognizes that the mass of cattle in the capital is decreasing, mainly due to the shortage of food for animals.
The study will continue until 2025, when the results will be evaluated in different species of local livestock. At the end of 2024, he detailed Northeast Lighthousethe first results on the yield and agronomic management of the crop will be available.
The cooperation, which helps to develop in other countries something that constitutes one of the main problems of Cuba, has been extended to political and scientific visits by both parties. In December 2023, the consul general of the regime in the Canary Islands, Elsa Agramonte, visited the ICIA Farm El Pico, where this project is being developed, accompanied by the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food Sovereignty of the Government of the Canary Islands, Narvay Quintero .
In turn, in April of this year, researchers from ICIA and USF traveled to Cuba to participate in different work meetings and learn first-hand about the research and studies carried out at INIVIT on cassava and other reserve tubers and roots.
One of the most frequent complaints of Cuban ranchers is the lack of feed to feed the animals. This constitutes one of the main causes of the low meat production on the Island.
In April of that year, while the Canarian specialists were visiting the Island, the state press reported that the construction of what should be the largest animal feed factory in the country was paralyzed. The execution of the work, located in the industrial zone in the west of Santiago de Cuba, had begun in 2019.
