Cuban News Agency

---

According to an extensive report published by Granma newspaper, most of
the municipalities of the country were able to find solutions to
insufficiencies detected in a previous inspection by members of the
National Group’s board, in which five provinces –out of 15- were evaluated
as Bad and four as regular.

The National Program of Urban and Suburban Agriculture was launched in
Cuba a few years ago with the purpose of bringing fresh food closer to the
people, saving fuel and other resources in the transportation of such
goods and in general contribute to the Cuban effort to develop a
sustainable agriculture.

The general director of the Fundamental Research Institute of Tropical
Agriculture, Adolfo Rodriguez Nodals, said the panorama was quite
different in the recently concluded year as most of the provinces had a
positive performance, except for Villa Clara which was evaluated as
regular despite of improvements in certain indicators.

In a recent report on Periodico 26, a local Cuban newspaper, 1,052,000
tons of vegetables were produced by urban farmers in 2011, which
represented 105 percent of the plan, about 2,000 tons more than expected.

In 2012, urban and suburban agriculture is expected to supply vegetables
for the tourism sector, in addition to its original mission of providing
food to the people in the community.