FAO Representative to Cuba Highlights Role of Education in Agriculture

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 27- UN Food and Agriculture Organization representative to Cuba Marcio Porto highlighted the important role education plays to achieve sustainable development in Cuban agriculture.

Porto said that Cuban farmers have all the knowledge they need to use new technologies that will allow them to raise yields in their harvests.

He said a good example is growing beans within mango fields which allows farmers to better use the available land, optimize the use of fertilizers and to have a profit in short time.

Porto pointed out that the sustainable development model Cuban agriculture is using is based in short, medium and long term strategies which are already producing good results in areas surrounding towns and cities.

This will allow Cuba to produce domestically all the food it needs in times when prices have skyrocketed throughout the world, due to the world financial crisis, he added.

Porto explained that farmers attending workshops are increasing their professional level, a situation that doesn’t happen in many other countries, where people don’t know the benefits food could bring them.

“If they don’t know that fruits contain minerals and proteins they don’t grow them, therefore they don’t consume them and stick to traditional crops that satisfy their appetite”. (acn)