More than 2,600 tons of mango were lost in the Cuban province of Guantanamo, in the eastern part of the island, due to processing difficulties, breakdowns in processing plants and a lack of packaging, official sources said on Monday.
The number, collected by the newspaper Venceremos and the digital portal Cubadebate, is part of the 6,794 tons of fruit contracted for the current harvest season, the fruit specialist in the provincial Delegation of Agriculture, Ramon Sanchez, told the Guantanamo press. Tank breakages and a lack of cans in the province's canneries are among the main causes, Sanchez said.
In addition, he said, it's unlikely that one of the most modern factories in that area, the one in San Antonio del Sur, will achieve the objectives set for this campaign because of the repeated industrial stoppages and because they were going to run out of packages soon. "The situation is not new, it happens every year and those in charge should have greater foresight and be better prepared to meet the contracts with producers, so that the fruit is not lost, and so that people receive a highly demanded and needed agricultural item, in fresh or canned," the report added.
The matter was discussed last week at the first of two annual meetings held by the National Assembly (unicameral Parliament). During the pre-plenary commissions, the Cuban Minister of the Food Industry, María del Carmen Concepción, said that her department had made several investments to "offer more quality products to the population", according to official sources
At the same meeting, the Deputy Minister of Industry, Eloy Alvarez Martinez stated that there was a deficit in these productions whose demand has grown by 332% in the last two years and that they had only been able to support 25 million out of more than 57 million units planned.
Source: El Sol de Margarita