Sustainable land management for the protection and progress of soils is among the priorities of many experts on these issues. Cuba's soils are highly erodible and only 23 percent of them have a productive category.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- This reality, which requires constant attention from a multisectoral perspective, is even greater in a province like this one, marked by long periods of intense drought, especially in the last decade.
Here, according to recent statements by the Ministry of Agriculture, the "dryness", as the most knowledgeable farmers call it, is compounded by erosion, acidity, low fertility, low effective depth, and salinity, especially in the northern part of the territory.
Because of the high degradation, a direct consequence of the loss of their original characteristics, constant and wise conservation actions are necessary. This is what the specialists of Science, Technology, and Environment (CITMAin Spanish) are working on in the territory, knocking on doors, supporting good practices, and betting more and more on reducing aggressions to soils, using crop residues and organic fertilizers to treat them and attending to their particularities and most pressing needs.
Perhaps the best example of what can be done is right now in the Hermanos Velázquez farm, of the Credit and services cooperative (CCS by its acronym in Spanish) Cuba Va, in the municipality of Majibacoa, which has been part of the sustainable land management program since last year.
Under the category of initiated, they seek to reduce soil degradation by reducing erosion, hence they work to increase crop yields, the area covered by forest and, at the same time, put a stop to water and soil pollution, as natural resources.
They are not the only ones. Other efforts in these lands are making headway, and the files of two new farms are already being evaluated for incorporation into this program. Such is the case of the soil polygon of the basic business unit (UEB in Spanish) Adolfo Villamar, of the agricultural company Jesús Menéndez, and the CCS Mártires de Bolivia, in Puerto Padre.
All the efforts have among their essences that the soil is part of life itself, microorganisms inhabit it, and healthily improving its activity is also a bet for the quality of existence on the planet and for the happy development of the many processes that are triggered from it.
Harmonizing with concrete actions the possible dream of soil conservation is the way; in Las Tunas that is what we are working for.
