Güines, Mayabeque- The new headquarters of the Félix Varela y Morales Pre-University Vocational Institute of Exact Sciences (IPVCE) was inaugurated this week, on the occasion of the anniversary of the creation of the province of Mayabeque. The new location for the school was much desired by students and teachers.

The proximity to the province’s thriving scientific center, the University of Agrarian Sciences and many other research centers will allow the young people to interact more closely with the highly trained professionals working in these institutes, many of them luminaries in the basic sciences.

The students are also happy to be close to the territorial capital, the city of San José, which, due to its location and interconnections, shortens the commuting distance between municipalities.

Besides that, the building, a classic school in the countryside, was completely repaired, although work is still being done in the sports areas and other details, so the living and teaching conditions are very good.

Last Friday afternoon, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, and the Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee, Roberto Morales Ojeda, visited the IPVCE.

The visit was part of the tours through municipalities of the country to analyze with the municipal committees of the Party, in this case that of Güines, the priorities for 2024 in the political, economic and social areas, the assurance to them, and the current debates and implementation of the recently announced economic measures.

The relevance of the fact that this emblematic educational institution, created 30 years ago in the south of the territory, in Melena del Sur, bears the name of Father Félix Varela y Morales, one of the most lucid patriots and intellectuals of the Cuban nationality, was discussed by Díaz-Canel with the students of the University of Güines.

Díaz-Canel spoke to the students, who, together with their teachers, could not contain themselves in the classrooms and crowded corridors and stairways to talk to him.

He highlighted the vocation of young people towards exact sciences, because you, he commented, are the future of science and innovation; you -he added- are part of that path that Fidel envisioned more than 60 years ago, when he said that Cuba had to be a country of men of science and thought.

“Of science and thought, because sometimes this phrase is quoted and the word “thought” is not added,” insisted the Head of State, to match the symbolism that a pre-university of exact sciences also bears the name of Felix Varela.

The new IPVCE facility in Mayabeque was a desired school. The revitalization of the solid construction has cost millions of pesos, including technological classrooms and other specialized areas. And it has been done in one of the most economically strained moments of the Revolution.

A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIENCE

The La Luisa farm, managed by the young land user Alexander Pérez Vasallo, has central pivot irrigation machines, fertile land, a hard-working and tireless staff, and a strong will and a lot of enterprise.

The results of this farmer give a lot to think about. In the potato areas he achieves yields of 40 tons per hectare, almost double the national average, a figure close to what is achieved in temperate countries.

He also grows beans and other crops; he keeps a module of semi-rustic hens, with about 300 layers that allow him to collect about 120 eggs per day; and he raises pigs…. He pays his workers about 600 pesos a day, plus free lunch and the systematic distribution of the products he harvests.

The successful management of his land has allowed Alexander to benefit from the collaboration in the rural area that Mexico maintains with Cuba, including the acquisition of agricultural equipment, such as tractors and cultivation and ploughing equipment, with which he provides services to other producers.

Attached to the local agricultural company, in La Luisa a cooperation is being developed with one of the Vietnamese companies located in the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM) for the cultivation of hybrid corn for the production of animal feed.

Alexander plans to obtain, in the first harvest, 6.5 tons of corn per hectare, something rarely seen in Cuba. Once the initial stage is over, after the experiences learned, he plans to harvest between seven and eight tons per hectare in the following seasons. In the coming weeks, when the harvesters harvest the corn, he will plant soybeans in the quadrants of that irrigation machine.

As explained -to Díaz-Canel and Morales Ojeda- engineer Héctor Ginebra, president of the Mayabeque Agroforestry and Tobacco Business Group, this cooperation with the Vietnamese entity, as part of the Vi-Mariel project, which the Asian nation has in the ZEDM, has generated much satisfaction in the foreign investor.

According to the project, 500 hectares of the best grain producers in Mayabeque will be planted with this Vietnamese hybrid corn for animal feed production, although the purpose is to reach 1,200 hectares in the short term.

The Vietnamese are interested in continuing to develop cooperation with Mayabeque, both in corn and other crops, such as rice, for which lands in the south are being evaluated.

BUFFALOES AND EL CANGRE

Since 2002, the Empresa Pecuaria Genética El Cangre, in Güines, has specialized in the development of buffalo cattle, a strategy that Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz began to promote in the country in 1996.

Founded in the 1970s to promote dairy cows, the entity, which is also the central institution for buffalo genetics at the national level, specializes in milk, yogurt, cheese and meat from these cattle.

In 2002, it began its program with the arrival of some 1,200 specimens of river buffalo. At the moment, it has almost 6,500 head, although to this figure should be added the thousands of animals sold to other companies, including stallions and females for breeding, in addition to those slaughtered for meat.

According to the statistics presented to Díaz-Canel and Morales Ojeda, the company accounts for the production of 15.8 million liters of buffalo milk; more than 290,000 liters of cheese (more than 46 tons), nearly 58,000 liters of yogurt, and almost 3,600 tons of meat.

Sales to domestic, border and export markets, the link with non-state entities and other initiatives have allowed El Cangre to enjoy financial health, something that is rarely seen in livestock companies in the country.

It is far from its full potential, but in 2023 it obtained profits of more than 12 million pesos, a result that is still discreet, but which has allowed it to undertake new initiatives and to benefit its 369 workers, 110 of whom are women. The average salary here is 6,418 pesos per month, although those directly involved in production earn much more.

New horizons are opening up for the entity, which, taking advantage of the measures that have been implemented to grant full autonomy to the socialist state enterprise, is finalizing the details for the implementation of an international economic association already approved for the production of cheese, although they want to go further, and are also negotiating the production of meat.

In spite of the deterioration that cattle production has suffered in the last decades, El Cangre, a company in which all the limitations faced by other livestock entities in the country also weigh heavily, has managed to move forward. It has done so with hard work, ingenuity and creativity of its workers and managers. “It has done so despite the blockade,” said Díaz-Canel.

Before touring areas of the company, including a children’s house that benefits young mothers from the center and others from the Education and Health sectors, the President of the Republic had an exchange with residents of the El Cangre community, who came out to greet him with affection and commitment.

As he would later say to the members of the Municipal Committee of the Güines Party, and to the first secretaries of the 11 municipalities of Mayabeque, among other reflections, Díaz-Canel pointed out, in the emotional meeting with the people, that it is work, “work and work, and doing it with creativity”, how we can get ahead in the complex situation that the country is going through, despite the blockade of the United States Government against Cuba.

El Cangre is just one example.