On this sixth visit to the province in 2024, Díaz-Canel went to the municipality of La Palma, where he highlighted the efforts of the people of Pinar del Río to face the complex economic scenario that the country is going through.
Díaz-Canel insisted on the need to promote the diversification of production. (Photo: El Guerrillero/Facebook).
Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, called to take advantage of all the potential and diversify productions during a tour of places of interest in the municipality of La Palma in the province of Pinar del Río.
This, which constitutes the sixth visit of the highest leadership of the Central Committee to the province’s territories, aims to point out where things are not going well, and there are real possibilities of transforming the scenarios.
Such is the case of the Marbajita Agricultural Farm, belonging to the La Palma Forestry Company, where cassava, bananas, and corn are currently planted, and more than 10 hectares are already being prepared for other crops.
The land previously belonged to the UBPC La Miriam, a productive structure that was separated into three fundamental areas and which are now managed by companies in the territory.
Osmel Portales Almora, director of “Forestal”, pointed out that his entity closed 2023 with six million pesos in losses and currently only maintains one million.
He clarified that wood prices are well below real costs, since due to the lack of fuel and lubricants, they have had to acquire them, especially the latter, through SMEs at high prices.
In addition, the rains also delay the work of foresters who must cut and extract wood from the forest, along wild and intricate paths.
He insisted that from an orderly work system they have managed to achieve results on the farm, they plan to incorporate livestock modules and continue cleaning areas for the production of food for workers and the population.
Díaz-Canel recognized the work that is done in that place with just six men directly involved in production and urged the use of wood in the construction of modules for typology IV housing, an issue that is subject, the provincial authorities warned, to authorizations for the use of wood, since this is a resource of national balance.
The fruit farm of the usufructuary Gustavo Rodríguez, linked to the La Palma Tobacco Collection and Processing Company, was another of the sites visited by the president. There he stressed the need to adapt an organized work system, with precise economic analysis, since the Tobacco Collection and Processing Company of the territory ended 2023 with 16 million pesos in losses and by 2024 they also plan to end with about 22 million.
In order to transform this situation, Reinier Izquierdo, director of the company, stated that at the end of June they will be able to sell all the backlogged tobacco from previous campaigns, they will venture into covered tobacco, in the production of postures and diversify productions, above all, those that can contribute to feeding the people.
Gustavo Rodríguez, usufructuary, said that he pays his workers at a rate of 400 pesos for half a day of work, which guarantees labor.
In this regard, the President pointed out that it is fair that whoever produces earns, but this cannot be informal work, it has to be declared, contribute to social security and pay taxes for the use of labor force, so that evade the treasury, he pointed out.
These payments, Díaz-Canel appreciated, contribute to the formation of high, excessive prices. That is a distortion, he said, since a doctor who saves lives nor a teacher who guarantees the future does not earn that much.
In a conversation with residents of the La Ceja community, in the Santos Cruz popular council, Díaz-Canel referred to the housing construction program, although this territory, with pending cases still, is not one of the most backward in the province.
La Ceja, a community in transformation and with about 1,100 inhabitants, has worked, thanks to the participation of its people, to repair the dining room of the Family Care System, the Jesús Lemus primary school and the office.
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