Cuba maintains an extensive cooperation with Dutch company Enza Seeds, focused on the development of seeds of tomato and other produce.
The representative of the company for the Caribbean, Ange Mangeri, who is attending the First National Seed Fair, said to Prensa Latina news agency that they begun a cooperation program related to protected cultures over 14 years ago.
This cooperation includes advisory by Enza Seeds experts in this technology and the introduction, text and evaluation of the new tomatos, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, onions and lettuce.
In a short time, he said, they have been able to create hybrids of tomatoes and cucumbers that have already spread countrywide because of their endurance of the climatic conditions and their resistance to a number of diseases that hinder their crops.
Mangeri acknowledges Cuba has great knowledge in the integrated struggles against plagues and it is frequent the use of biological means to control several pathogens, as well as the use of biofertilizaers to nurish and stimulate the crops.
He also added that Cuban specialists have received training courses and capacity building in the company headquarters. Recently, the company also donated equipment with a capacity to pack millions of seed, which was recently installed in Havana.
Without seeds there is no agriculture. Mangeri reflected. He then explained that 70 percent of the research time is devoted to seed, a field that is very demanding of study and trials and in which there is no room for improvisation because cheap can be expensive in the end, he added.
In the Fair, which concluded on Sunday April 22 in the Rancho Boyeros Fairgrounds, especialists from the research institutions of the Ministry of Agriculture and other institutions' centers that study and develop seeds gave more than 40 lectures to participants in the event.
One of the main purposes of this event is the promotion of a culture of knowledge of seeds in order to increase agricultural yields. This first Natoanl Seed Fair was attended by 280 exhibitors and farmers
With information from Prensa Latina News Agency
(Spanish text from Radio Angulo)