-DATE-
19921227
-YEAR-
1992
-DOCUMENT TYPE-

-AUTHOR-

-HEADLINE-
Castro Delivers Speech at Guines Cooperative
-PLACE-
CARIBBEAN / Cuba
-SOURCE-
Havana Television and Radio Networks
-REPORT NO.-
FBIS-LAT-92-250
-REPORT DATE-
19921229
-HEADER-
==========================================================================

Report Type:         Daily report             AFS Number:     FL2812181292
Report Number:       FBIS-LAT-92-250          Report Date:    29 Dec 92
Report Series:       Daily Report             Start Page:     4
Report Division:     CARIBBEAN                End Page:       8
Report Subdivision:  Cuba                     AG File Flag:   
Classification:      UNCLASSIFIED             Language:       Spanish
Document Date:       27 Dec 92
Report Volume:       Tuesday Vol VI No 250

Dissemination: 

City/Source of Document:   Havana Television and Radio Networks 

Report Name:   Latin America 

Headline:   Castro Delivers Speech at Guines Cooperative 


Author(s):   President Fidel Castro at the Amistad Cubano-Bulgara
Agricultural-Livestock Cooperative in Guines Municipality, Havana Province, on
26 December-recorded] 

Source Line:   FL2812181292 Havana Television and Radio Networks in Spanish
2313 GMT 27 Dec 92 

Subslug:   [Speech by President Fidel Castro at the Amistad Cubano-Bulgara
Agricultural-Livestock Cooperative in Guines Municipality, Havana Province, on
26 December-recorded] 

-TEXT-
FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE: 1.  [Speech by President Fidel Castro at the Amistad
Cubano-Bulgara Agricultural-Livestock Cooperative in Guines Municipality,
Havana Province, on 26 December-recorded] 

2.  [Text] [Castro] Comrades: It was a little late by the time I was able to
leave to come here. I said: Well, if the ceremony is from 1500 to 1600, there
is not much hope that I will get there in time. I was talking with Carlos
Perez, who was in Menocal. e was leaving, Basulto [not further identified] had
already left, so I was going to leave. I did not say anything to him, but I
also made an effort to come.  On the way, I said to the comrades: Well, it is
better to arrive late than never at all. In addition, there were all kinds of
things out on the highway: carts, horses, bicycles, trucks, buses. That was
risky, not so much for those of us who were going somewhat fast, but for those
who were also going along the highway. 

3.  There were kids, students near some schools. That is why in the end we had
to slow down to get here. We had to find out what the most direct route would
be. They said it was around here where Brigade No. 30 is. Lage said that he had
been here for a youth event. They told me there was a workshop and that the
cooperative was near the workshop.  But, we hoped you would not have dispersed
yet, and at least we could arrive in time for a small part of the ceremony. 

4.  I was interested in all those figures. I am interested in hearing even more
figures. I consider this cooperative movement very important. It is a real pity
that the special period did not catch us with all the farmers' land organized
into agricultural-livestock cooperatives [CPA]. The movement has gone slowly.
It is voluntary, as you know, strictly voluntary. No pressure has ever been
exerted. Perhaps we began it a little late. In the first part, all the stress
was laid on developing the state enterprises. We did not touch the small
farming sector out of respect for their mode of production, style, and customs.


5.  I think that perhaps the cooperative movement should have begun sooner, but
above all, the cooperative movement should have begun a lot before the famous
free farmers' markets. Or perhaps we should never have come up with that
formula of the free farmers' markets, which did us so much harm in all spheres.
Even in the ideological sphere, because there are those who believe the free
farmers' markets are going to supply the markets. Who is going to tell you a
story, and who is going to tell us a story, about how the markets should be
supplied? With the hundreds of thousands of quintals per month, almost 1
million quintals per month, that the markets in Havana need? And the hundreds
of trucks that are needed to carry the produce to them? 

6.  We cannot supply that monster with small farms. You can be absolutely
certain about that. Unfortunately, the free farmers' markets were introduced in
the middle of the development of the cooperative movement, and the cooperative
movement came to a halt, because as soon as many people could collect all the
money they wanted at a time when materials and everything were abundant, those
free farmers' markets brought the cooperative movement to a halt. I think that
was the greatest harm they did us. But hey did quite a lot of ideological harm
too. They enriched a lot of people, not because they produced more, but because
they sold at much higher prices. If you sell a head of garlic for one peso,
this does not mean that you will make more money by producing much more garlic,
but rather by selling it at a much higher price. 

7.  That was what happened, as a rule, with the famous free farmers' markets.
This gave people delusions, people who also had a little more money. A lot of
the fertilizer that was supposed to be used in the production supply plan was
used for the products hat were going to the free farmers's markets, to the
detriment of the supplies going to the city.  Since from time to time a pig,
goat, chicken, sheep, or four hens appeared-all of that totalled barely 2
percent of the supplies to the city-there were people who got delusions about
the free farmers' markets. That is the truth. So they harmed the organization
of agriculture and agricultural production. 

8.  They did harm in the ideological sphere to a lot of people, not just small
farmers but also people from the cities.  Collection....[pauses] Imagine
collecting-not the production we have now, unfortunately-2.5 billion eggs,
small farm by small farm. How many people would you need, how many trucks would
you need, to do that? Today, we have arrived at a procedure for production and
distribution which is marked among other things by what they are already doing
at many farms: They have trucks and they send the products directly to the
markets. 

9.  You have no idea of the advantages there are in sending the products
directly to the markets, because they are sent quickly, when they are fresh.
The state enterprises that are sending their products are making up to one and
one-half trips by truck per day. They are not just taking them to the
agricultural distribution centers. They take them to the agricultural
distribution centers so that they can be organized and told where to deliver
them, to what small market. They do not even have to unload there, at the
agricultural distribution centers. They load at the enterprise, they arrive at
the centers, they are weighed, and the trucks with all the products go directly
to the small markets, almost directly from the producer to the consumer. You
have 

no idea of the transportation and time this saves, with the possibility of
delivering the products fresh. 

10.  This same thing can be done with the CPA perfectly well.  We can see that
with a relatively small number of trucks we are now supplying many markets. How
many trucks does the Guines enterprise have? They have not yet started.  Which
ones have already tarted this? Artemisa. How many trucks do they have? They
have 11 trucks. Of course, in peak seasons like the one that is approaching
now, they need many more. What others do this? Guira. How many trucks do they
have? There are five enterprises that now have the trucks to distribute
directly to the markets. This is a tremendous advantage. 

11.  The CPA are wonderful. This is an excellent form of organization for
agriculture, and you are showing this. See how easily [Orlando] Lugo [Fonte]
spoke here about the 27 CPA in Havana Province, and how easy it is to discuss
things with 27 CPA, make schedules and plans with 27 CPA, meet with them, with
the CPA management. There are 27, and they are going to produce....[pauses]
What were your figures, Lugo? How much are the 27 going to produce? You said
2,600,000 more or less? It was 3,191,800 [quintals]. That was what percentage
of the small farming sector production? It was 53 percent. The products must be
collected from 27 places, and taken to the markets from 27 places. How many
credit and services cooperatives are there? The products must be
collected....[pauses] They are going to produce less than the 27 CPA, 2,474,000
[quintals], and this must be collected from 1,375 places. So organizing
production, planning it, with 30, 40, or 50 entities is not the same as
organizing and planning it with thousands of entities, or thousands of
different centers. 

12.  There are eight miscellaneous crops enterprises and 27 CPA. That gives 35.
How much are those two kinds of entities going to produce? No, both of them. I
consider that the two of them should produce next year, if these plans are met
more or less, at least 11 million quintals. At least.  Yes, I am constantly
making calculations, and I know that 11 and 2.4 would give 13.4, but if 14
million is reached, 11.6 would be from those 35 entities; that is, the 27 CPA
and the eight state agricultural-livestock enterprises. That is without
counting the small amounts that small farmers and small landowners say they are
going to contribute to production next year. 

13.  A lot of techniques are simplified and facilitated to an extraordinary
degree. The use of that Fregat irrigation machinery for five or six caballerias
is impossible to apply to the small farms. Everyone knows that that irrigation
machinery is the most economical, conserves the most fuel, distributes the
water best, gives the best yields.  Bananas with the microjet irrigation system
need at least six or seven caballerias so there can be a processing center. 
Imagine if you had that divided into 40 or 50 places. You would have to put all
those bananas on a cart and take them to a processing center so they will not
spoil, to preserve the bananas, protect them, pack them. But in the cart while
they travel kilometers, the bananas spoil, they get bruised, they are damaged.
It is not the same as having seven caballerias, and the bananas can even be
carried on cables to the processing center. 


14.  When you have to spray, do you think you can spray 3,000 different banana
plots by plane or with the microjet system? In addition, do you think you can
produce up to 600 or 650 caballerias of bananas with the microjet system? This
must be done in compact areas. Otherwise it is impossible, because you need the
piping, machinery, and processing centers. This can only be done compactly.
That is true. That is what experience shows. Where we have the elements of
greatest uncertainty for everything- organizing production, ensuring pest
control, organizing the irrigation equipment, using the most productive
irrigation equipment, using the machinery-where we have the most problems is
with production on small plots, fragmented production. That is very difficult.
There are many things that cannot be done. 

15.  This is regardless of the fact that there are small farmers who are
excellent producers. There are small farmers who are not only excellent
producers but are also researchers and innovators. We know a few of them, and
we even take advantage of their experience because we have made them advisors
to the Executive Committee, because they know things, they invent things. But
they are not the rule, but really the exception. They are very good, and they
help.  There are also some products that are almost better to produce on small
plots rather than large expanses of land.  That is a fact. But also on a
cooperative like yours, you can set aside some plots for some things. If you
want to plant garlic, you can plant a relatively small plot of garlic, (?or
grain), or vegetables, or different things. 

16.  That is why if there is something we regret, it is that we have not been
able to meet the special period with all the land of the small farmers turned
into CPA. This is not so, because of the Revolution's concept and principle:
the principle of respecting absolutely the small farmers' free will. We also
know that everything that is illegal or illegal trade does not really take
place at a state miscellaneous crops enterprise. It does not take place at a
CPA. There is order, discipline, respect, and all. The irregularities are
committed primarily where there are plots, parcels, and little pieces of land.
But not in all of them, not in all of them, [repeats himself] because there are
individual small farmers who are very responsible, reliable, and onest. But
most of the headaches concerning collection and marketing do not come from the
CPA. It would be wonderful-that is why I say this-if under circumstances like
these everyone were organized as you are. 

17.  That is why we feel such special pleasure, and it is the primary reason
that, despite the time and the bicycles and all the obstacles along the way, I
made every effort to get here, to congratulate you, to give recognition to the
meaning of this feat f having reached 400,000 quintals of tubers, vegetables,
and grains. Because it is really a production feat and proof that this is a
superior form of agricultural production. 

18.  Even your lives are different. You do not live as isolated families as in
the time of Christopher Columbus. No, I am wrong. In the time of Christopher
Columbus the families did not live in isolation. They lived in villages.
[chuckles] That was after 

Columbus, when the Spanish conquered and divided. They created those famous
estates. I think they picked a central point, right? You can still see the
estates from a plane. They placed a guy in a central point and said: It is
yours as far as the eye can see, all around. I think that was one league and
something. Do any of you know how much land the famous Spanish estates had? 
[Puerto Real Mayor Jose] Barroso, you are not to blame for that. Do not try to
hide. 

19.  No, they had a league. This can be seen from a plane or helicopter. In
many places, the roads go in circles like that.  The traces of the old estates
are still there. The Spanish came and divided up the land, and with the land
they also divided up the Indians. An owner would come and say: Well, I am the
owner of all this. Then the land was broken into plots. The size of those
estates was enormous, gigantic. 

20.  But then foreign companies came and had more land than those estates did.
There were individual landowners who had much more land than those estates.
There were some like that. Others had less. Some of the land was broken into
plots. But that way of living isolated, individually, belongs completely to the
past. The cooperatives create a different sense of life, another (?concept), a
spirit of cooperation.  One lives more in community. Our cooperatives are
showing everything that can be done and how living standards can be raised.
Self-sufficiency can be ensured, everything can be organized, and the city can
be supplied. 

21.  I do not doubt that with 50 miscellaneous crops cooperatives....[pauses]
Well, not them alone, but with the state miscellaneous crops enterprises, we
could supply the city, with 50 or 60 entities, making the whole process of
collection, distribution, nd all that easier, reducing expenses to an
extraordinary degree, and using the most modern technology. I understand that
you have a CRE [expansion unknown] here also, right? That means you are at a
very high level, because it means producing biological pesticides within the
cooperative itself. You have a large workshop. I imagine that the workshops
have lathes. I imagine that you make parts. I imagine that you can solve many
problems. 

22.  Now I know that the cooperative is planting bananas with microjet
irrigation. How much is that going to be, 10 caballerias? With those (?8.40)
[caballerias] you may produce about 150,000 quintals when it is fully
productive. I am not only sure that you will reach 500,000 quintals next year,
if the weather is normal....[pauses] If there is a hurricane, things will
change, as is natural everywhere; but in normal times you should reach 500,000
quintals. That is a really notable thing. How many caballerias do you have? 
You have 70 under cultivation. (?There will be more) with the about eight
caballerias of bananas. They will have their processing center as well, right?
When they are fully productive, and with the quality of your cultivation, you
will not fall far short of 20,000 quintals per caballeria. 

23.  The important thing about your production is that it is not reached based
only on bananas grown with microjet irrigation. You do not have the bananas
with microjet irrigation yet. Rather, it is of miscellaneous crops in general,
which includes 

potatoes, cabbage, and garlic. How many different commercial crops do you have?
You have 30 commercial crops. How much cabbage did you plant for December? You
planted 3.80 [caballerias]. What yields are you getting? You are getting 12,000
quintals. You are harvesting it now. Are you planting lettuce? You do not plant
lettuce. How much potato have you planted? Have you already finished planting
it, or are you finishing it? Do you think you will finish by 31 December? You
have everything ready to finish it. You have harvested boniato, malanga, and
yuca also. How is the yuca? You did not have a lot. Plantains, the traditional
plantain variety, right? And Censa [National Center for Agricultural-Livestock
Health] variety plantains. How much does that produce? How much do you
calculate? Almost 8,000 quintals per caballeria. What machinery are you using
to irrigate? The gravity system. In spite of that, you have those yields with
the Censa plantain, right? More than 6,000 quintals. 

24.  How is self-sufficiency going? How many cows for milk production do you
have? But you already have them. You are trying to be self-sufficient. You are
developing some production. How many oxen are you using? You have 48 ox-teams.
How many are you going to have in the end?  You will have 80 ox-teams. Right.
How many members of the cooperative are there? You have 302, working. The
retired people also lend a hand during the peak harvest season and that. How
many people are in the town? Do they come here to these fields? Are we in the
town here, or where are we? Do you have a family doctor here? How many, one? A
doctor and a nurse. Are they right here? How far away? And those buildings we
can see there? Do you have a childcare center? It is not yours, right? Where is
the school? It is the same as the town school. Isn't it better that way, or
would you have preferred to live separately? Yes, you live together. There are
some 300 cooperative members. How many children are there? [words indistinct]
hey go to the town school? The secondary and primary school and all. Do you
have any work force helping you, any mobilized workers? You have three schools
with students who work in the fields in the harvest months.  How many children,
students, do they have? There are 350 students who help you with the harvests
of vegetables, cabbage, and all that. 

25.  Did you plant all the cabbage in August, or did you plant some in November
and December? How much? When do you intend to harvest it? It yields more,
right? It is the Hercules variety. What did you plant in August? The Hercules
variety, and it yielded bout 12,000 [quintals], right? What is the yield when
you plant it in December?  But when planted in December, the Hercules variety
can give 15,000 or 16,000. Do you plant tomatoes? Is that one of your
commercial crops? What variety are you planting? The 38-80? How is the 38-80?
How much of it do you think you will harvest? You will get more than the [words
indistinct], right? 

26.  How many workers does the CRE have? It has two, and you are producing all
the biological pesticides you need.  Which ones have given you the best
results? All those biological pesticides have had good results here at the
cooperative. 

27.  How much garlic do you have? What yield did you get last year? This year
you expect how much? You are not going to use lime, the technique of that small
farmer in Guira de Melena who dusts lime on? It helps the yield, right? That is
good. 


28.  Well, I think the pledges you have made are very good.  Lugo, I think the
way you are approaching the problem with the small farmers, with the CPA and
the small farmers, is very good. This is very important, that style of working
or talking with each f the small farmers, the individual pledges, the signing
of all those pledges. I think that if the weather is normal, whatever the
difficulties, more tubers and vegetables should be produced next year.  This
year, I think we will be around 11 million [quintals], which is a record
figure, a record. In the middle of the special period, the records for tuber
and vegetable production have been broken. I have no doubt we can come close to
14 million, if the individual farmers and the CPA produce 6 million, f the
figure you have given is met. 

29.  I calculate that state production, especially based on the share of the
banana plantations and the potatoes and other crops, should come close to 8
million quintals. We must also see if the December planting plan is met, if the
January and February plans are met. I have been trying to keep up to date with
the figures for these crops, and how the cabbage is going. Cabbage is a
high-yield crop, especially if it is protected by pesticides. Cabbage planting
has increased this year. Carrot planting has been increased, or should be
increased. It should total 140 quintals [as heard].  It is a very important
product because of its nutritive qualities and especially because of the amount
of vitamins carrots have. So there are 140 caballerias of carrots. 

30.  There are 133 caballerias of cabbage, in addition to the 20 planted in
August. We took the idea of planting it in August from you. Based on your
experience last year, we spread the idea of planting at least 20 caballerias of
cabbage in August to have abbage in December. In fact, now in December, the
populace is eating cabbage, thanks precisely to this experience of yours which
we have applied in other places in the province. We have applied it at the
state enterprises. Fulfillment of the potato plans will be very important.
Almost all the potatoes have been planted, and we hope that by 31 December they
will all have been planted. We hope yields per caballeria will be higher. This
year we have had potatoes until December, stored at the cold-storage centers.
It has been shown that they can be stored up to....[pauses] There is still a
little for January.  There is still a little bit of potatoes left for January.
It has been shown that they can be kept perfectly well at the cold-storage
centers. 

31.  But the state production will also depend on whether the boniato and yuca
planting is done on time. It will depend on the attention given the cabbage,
carrots, and potatoes. It will depend above all on the bananas that have been
planted, the hundreds f caballerias of bananas planted with the microjet
irrigation system, bananas and plantains.  It will depend on the discipline
with which the fertilizer is applied, potassium and urea. It will depend on the
discipline with which the techniques are applied, how the famous staggering
[escalera] works, since you cannot let all the shoots grow. The yields at the
state enterprises will depend a lot on the discipline with which the techniques
are applied to the bananas, because those caballerias have been planted. 

32.  So it will depend on you, the small farmers, and I do not have the least
doubt that the CPA are going to meet their plans. It will depend a lot on how
the production of the individual farmers goes. They should produce 2.4 million
[quintals]. It will 

depend on how we continue to work with them, the work of persuasion with them,
raising consciousness among those individual farmers. If those promises are
kept, and good work is done on the state land, we should not be far from 14
million quintals of tubers and vegetables in 1993, as long as the weather is
more or less normal. 

33.  I say more or less normal because there was no hurricane this year, but
there were some very heavy rainstorms. It was lucky we had put in some canals
in the area around Melena. We are putting in canals in different places around
Melena. We are putting in canals. Right here in this area, a canal must be put
in. I do not know how the work is going right now. We must do this, because
those excessively heavy rains also affect the fields. They are putting in
canals around Batabano. They are putting in, or should put in, some canals
around now in Alquizar, since the South Dike has made the water table rise. It
is necessary to drain that area. They have had some problems with fuel, but the
people from the National Institute for Water Resources have to tart them, and I
hope they will start soon, right, [Candido] Palmero? They should start to put
in those canals there to protect some tens of caballerias of bananas and other
crops. 

34.  This year was more or less normal, but with some above-average rainstorms
which affected squash and other crops.  We must keep in mind that excessive
rain affected production this year, but in spite of everything, we reached 11
million [quintals]. It ay be a little more than 11 million; 11.1 million or
11.2 million quintals. If next year is like this one as far as nature goes, if
there are no hurricanes- that is the only thing that can change this production
level-if everything is normal and we have the minimum amount of fuel needed,
etc., production should not be far from 14 million quintals. 

35.  If we keep to this work plan, which I think is well prepared and well
thought-out, its goals should be reached, just as we are already getting
results from what we have done.  There are more than 100 caballerias of bananas
growing, and they will come nto production. We still have a few caballerias of
bananas to plant, but we cannot count on that for 1993. We must count on it for
1994. How much more plantains are still to be planted, in all? There are 123
[caballerias]. So there are 156 caballerias that will come into production. We
will finish what is left in 1993, right?  What is left to plant in bananas. But
there is time, right?  We have a few months. We must work with perseverance and
tenacity. So [words indistinct] thinking not only of 1993 but also of 1994. 

36.  I hope that you are very pleased to have been awarded this banner. It is a
very great honor, and very greatly deserved for having reached 400,000
quintals. You have set an Olympic record in the production of tubers and
vegetables.  I do not have the slightest doubt that next year you will break
this record. How are the other things going? How are you in caring for the
harvest? I imagine that you are well organized, that you also have your weapons
to defend the harvest here, right? Good. Defense is also organized here.  I
imagine that many of you are members of the Territorial Troops Militia, right?
I see you also have young people here. Do you or do you not? Are you able to
bring young people into the cooperative or not? 


37.  Well, then, how do you feel today? Good. Are you very pleased about the
400,000 quintals? My visit is not important at all. This is my job, to go
around, see how things are going, and especially not be absent when historic
events like this occur. It is really a historic event for a cooperative with 70
caballerias of land, which are not all in production, to reach 400,000
quintals. I have no doubt that we will reach 500,000 quintals next year. You
deserve the greatest recognition and the warmest congratulations for this. This
is how we must work. This is how the Revolution is made.  This is how the
nation is built. This is how we fulfill our glorious slogan of socialism or
death, fatherland or death, we will win! [applause] 
-END-