Between January and September of this year, the Agroindustrial Ceballos Company, in the province of Ciego de Avila, made 653,380 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) in pineapple exports to Europe.
This income responds to the need for the sector to progressively contribute to the country's balance of payments, so that they stop being a net importer of food and to reduce the high dependence on financing currently being covered with income from other branches, according to the Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution.
The company exported 970 tons of pineapples to Europe in the aforementioned period. The goal is to export a total of 1,200 tons this year, particularly to France, Italy, and Spain, through the Citricos Caribe Company of the Ministry of Agriculture .
Engineer Wilver Bringas Fernandez, the director of the Ceballos company, told the ACN everything was ready to continue exporting the fresh fruit abroad, especially because they had a benefactor center that helped them increase their standards.
The variety being marketed is known as MD-2, of which there are abundant seedlings to complete the planting of 2,000 hectares in 2020, as well as the Red Spanish pineapple variety, the most widespread variety in the Cuban provinces because of its resistance to drought.
Engineer Reinaldo Avila Guerra, a specialist in this type of crop, said the MD-2 variety demanded specific cultural care, drainage, soil leveling, irrigation, and chemical fertilizers, but that it could produce more than 80 tons per hectare, i.e. three times as much as the Red Spanish variety.
Although the drought has affected some crops, Ciego de Avila aims at producing more than the 7,329 tons of pineapple it produced in 2015, a figure that is still lower than the demand.
In 1991 the region produced more than 30,000 tons of pineapples, but in the past decade their crops decreased due to the deterioration of the fields and a lack of resources.
Pineapples are rich in carbohydrates, iron, magnesium, iodine, zinc, manganese, vitamins A, B, and C, in addition to antioxidants that slow aging.
It is a perennial plant of the family of the bromeliads, native to Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. It can bloom between 20 and 24 months and it bears fruit in the next 6 months.
According to statistics, the export market for fresh pineapple is dominated by Costa Rica, which produces 29 percent of the pineapples in the world. The United States is the largest importer of pineapples worldwide.
Source: cuba.cu