Las Tunas, Cuba.- If you doubt it, you just have to walk a little through the sugar fields of these lands and breathe all the sweetness that distills the life of its inhabitants. In them, a few years ago, even the youngest children understood that nothing was despicable if you wanted to have a good production.

Cane, for sugar production; the bagasse, for the boards; the cachaza, for wax; the molasses, for honey. And there are also by-products to give energy to the industry, to feed the animals, to make excellent rum and a thousand and one more inventions.

Moreover, if there were any of those by-products left around, a pinch just inside a wagon, that was to feed pigs in the courtyards of the large tile houses and swings in the porches. Besides, people's food is not secondary in the socialist economy.

A beneficial gear in all spheres to which Cuba turns its gaze, each day with more drive, resuming diversification and in constant commitment to development. Other essences announce themselves behind these great truths: import substitution, national production of goods and services, creation of exportable funds and productive chains, to name a few.

Once again, I go back to the one who doubts it and I refer him to the closing day of the governmental visit last February. There, surrounded by good inhabitants of this province, Miguel Díaz-Canel highlighted the tradition of these lands in exports, the advantages of having Carúpano and Guayabal, magnificent ports, located to the north and south of the province. He also pondered the need to strengthen exports in all sectors of the economy.

He has also insisted on these issues in other areas during his mandate. Among them, diversification and its contribution which stand out, in how it fosters the creation of new jobs, develops productive forces and, something primordial, it also awakens with the first results the will to do and the hope of the people.

Las Tunas had a sugarcane potential that supplied seven sugar mills. Together, these industries produced more than 700,000 tons of sugar in one harvest. In addition, there are more than 25 products made from grass by-products. These derivatives, say some local experts, can generate more than 30 percent of the sector's total income. We talk about concrete advantages everywhere.
Of course, years of deterioration in the industries, of neglect in the fields, have left important sequels. It is necessary to invest and the country is doing it. At the same time, it is necessary to renew the spirit and energy of a people with sugar roots who need young blood in their industries in order to flourish.
The engineers and simple men, who were trained in the 60's and 70's of the last century in Cuban universities, carried out all this work. It is fair to say it . Because it is necessary to recognize that many professionals and eminent academics left Cuba after the triumph of January 1959, leaving unprotected the teaching and the continuity of important industrial processes such as sugar and nickel.

When you dialogue with those who made these works true, in the past, you discover an infinite number of names. And, curiously enough, they seem to agree to demand of the journalist, with determination: you have to mention them all!

Stories flourish, anecdotes, dawns: Juan Herrera, Luis M. Ávila, Héctor Gómez, Pablo Guntin, Antonio Martínez Pimentel, Edel Fonseca, Miguel Abreu, Alberto Francis Leyva, Manuel Díaz Piñón, Antonio Hidalgo Sicilia, Julia Nápoles, Fernando Cañizares, Juan Torres, Alberto Jiménez, Marisol Olamendi, Jorge de la Cruz, Ansberto Reyes, Waldo Torres, Alfonso Abram, Andrés Espeso, Roberto López, Arnaldo Hechavarría, José Donald, René Filgueira, Blanca Garcés, Aldo Pascual, Pedro Castro and many others.

Of that group, most of them today comb gray hair. Others have died and there are many who, for the most diverse reasons, live far away from the land, from the cane field and even from the country. They came to the industries very young, some of them just graduated. They dedicated themselves entirely to developing the different technologies, accumulating, between obstacles and results, a vast experience.

Today the conditions in the country are better. A legion of university students remains in the houses of high studies. We have the responsibility to make them fall in love with sugarcane and its productions. And we have it, especially in Las Tunas.

Diversifying and taking all that drive to the industries is the only way to develop productions that have to do, moreover, with our most authentic cultural identity. Few things I remember with more joy from my childhood years than the uproar of a sugar cane field. Now the outlook is grimmer when the afternoon falls and everyone returns home. It seems, at times, that life ends.

This also has to do with giving man hopes and reasons. Nothing better than taking up who we are. If you read to me and you are very young, you may not understand as I do. But ask, find out around and be proud to live in Las Tunas. We are the capital of derivatives in Cuba. The land where sweet is more than a harvest; because it is work, sweat, rum, bagasse and freedom. We cannot renounce that.

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