While the actions for the imminent start of the sugar harvest continue, and most of the sugar factories in the province also create the conditions for the production of molasses, the sowing of sugar cane continues to be a complicated challenge for Ciego de Avila.

The report of what has been planted up to the 22nd of last month indicates that barely 24 percent of what was planned for the spring and cold campaigns has been achieved, so the remaining weeks of 2024 will be vital to at least expand the area where the raw material for future campaigns will germinate.

According to information provided on the aforementioned date to Salvador Valdés Mesa, member of the Party’s Political Bureau and Vice President of the Republic, the lack of diesel has been the fundamental cause for the fact that only 1801.9 hectares (ha) have been sown, out of the 7541.3 planned for both campaigns.

As can be seen in the statistical summary, the negative trend and the margins of non-compliance are very similar to those reported at other times of the year by Invasor.

For example, in the immediately preceding note, we included the data provided by Eduardo Larrosa Vázquez, director of Coordination and Supervision of the Azcuba Sugar Group in the territory, who reported a meagre 23 percent compliance with the cold campaign in October.

The impossibility of using the land of the Empresa Azucarera Agroindustrial (EAA) Ciro Redondo, which had to be freed up after paying the raw material in the first months of the year to the Coloso del Centro, once again inactive in the last campaign, together with the repeated lack of fuel and some organisational problems in the EAA Enrique Varona, also affected the success of the campaign.

The use of areas benefiting from irrigation systems remains a priority in the final stretch to 2024, when the aim is to deposit the seed in 180 ha, with the greatest role for the Coloso del Centro planters, in charge of a hundred or so.

(With information from Invasor)