The air of the winter season does not cool to the fullest. Nor does it manage to heat up with the rigors of work, as needed, the cold planting of various crops in Ciego de Avila, where climatic and logistical adversities cool the efforts of the agricultural system.

Rains and the insufficient availability of fuels, oils and fats delay the preparation of the land. Even so, seeds are being planted on 90% of the area planned for the last four-month period of 2023. It is not optimal, but it is worth the sacrifice.

Persevering is, for the improvements in the present month with the distribution of indispensable resources, the engineer Pedro Díaz González, head of the agricultural department of the Provincial Delegation of Agriculture, expresses that today the climate is kind. «If it does not rain and the material insurance favors us, we will be able to recover the 1,872 hectares left unplanted until last December, materialize those planned for January and advance until the end of the campaign in February. The total plan for the territory is 25,682.6 hectares».

Hot and cold

While the planters overcome the obstacles in the sun to increase the daily rhythm, the pleasant working climate benefits the process in the in vitro propagation laboratory, belonging to the medium-sized biotechnological seed company SEBIOCA S.U.R.L., the first state MSME created in Ciego de Avila, in honor of January 15, Cuban Science Day.

The Master in Agrobiotechnological Sciences, Alina Martínez Rivero, supervises quality there. «We have in the multiplication phase clones of vianda plantain of the Fhia-01 and 04 varieties; Gran Enano fruit, PB 2012 donkey, and some malanga in which we are making inroads. His co-worker, Yanaris González Rodríguez, a specialist of the production brigade, recognizes that «we are initiating a higher stage because, what was here the biofactory, paralyzed for a while due to repairs, is reemerging as a form of management with greater perspectives for agriculture, the economy and our collective».

Such opinion agrees with the fruits in flowerbeds and cultivation houses in the area of adaptation of the vitroplants for subsequent marketing and planting in food production units. «Today, we have fruit, banana and malanga crops,» emphasize workers Beatriz Bordeloy Dunán and Yudith Machado Leiva.

«The essential objective is to contribute to the recovery of agriculture and contribute to the food sovereignty program, through permanent links with potential customers such as agricultural companies and the productive bases of the cooperative and peasant sector, among other entities», explains agronomist Ariel González Moleiro, SEBIOCA’s administrator, who argues that they have as a partner the Seed Marketing Company in Havana.

«Officially we started as a medium state enterprise this January with 61 workers, the commitment for this year is to produce more than 600 thousand vitroplants of different varieties of banana, vegetables, fruit and ornamental plants. In addition, for diversification, we are currently carrying out an investment process with a view to growing in protected crop houses and promoting efficient techniques such as agro-ecology, which we are currently applying in the seed reproduction beds».

From the laboratory to the field

«The fruit pumpkins that we produce are already planted in Paquito González, one of the most efficient Agricultural Production Cooperatives in the territory of Avila, and in areas of the Arnaldo Ramírez Company, in the municipality of Primero de Enero», emphasizes González Moleiro.

He emphasizes that the link with La Cuba agricultural and livestock farm is essential. The production director of this banana company, Arturo Figueredo Crespo, states that they will use Fhia-01 and 04 vitroplants, coming from Ciego de Avila and Villa Clara, and a new variety of banana fruit PL, with a view to fulfill this year the planting program of 300 hectares of extra dense banana to seek uniformity in plants and higher production volumes in less time.

Workers also went to the banana plantation to learn about the experience of the medium-sized company’s closest customer. Farmer René Quinteiro Castillo stops irrigation on his farm for a moment and says: «My relations, before with the biofactory and today with the MSME, are excellent because I always buy the planting material there, the seed is disinfected and the yields are higher in plantain, which is my main crop, because I also have the advice of specialists».

According to Dr. Maita Avila Espinosa, head of the commercial department, and Rolando Viera Velazco, responsible for logistics, SEBIOCA is the other renovating entity that the scientific community was missing in the place known as Modesto Reyes, where the Bioplants Center and the Máximo Gómez University in the province of Ciego de Avila are also located.