Miscellaneous Crops Under-delegate Rolando Macias Cardenas reported that the varieties planted meet the qualitative demands for a greater output of tomato paste using fewer raw materials and with yields exceeding 20 tonnes per hectare.

“However -said Macias- the severe drought days combined with heavy rains afterwards damaged the 1,637 hectares, in which yield did not exceed 13 tons per hectare on average.”

“It also influenced the failure to secure the technology package to all producers, high prices in the international market for urea and complete formula (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium),” added Macias.

Neither did the farmers have at their disposal the needed irrigation nor could they manage to work on crops health, he said.

The territory committed to deliver 20,800 tonnes factories located in the municipalities of Majagua, Florence, Turiguanó and La Antillana, but could only reach 12,800.

Jorge Calvo Fariñas, director of Majagua Canning Factory, the main industry in Ciego de Avila, explained that they could process in this campaign just over 5,000 tons, half of what they did last year.