• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 10 / 13 / 2010

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Havana, Oct 12 (EFE).- About 100,000 Cubans have joined the ranks of the country's farmworkers as part of a strategy by the government of Raul Castro to spur food production, the government daily Juventud Rebelde reported Tuesday.

The paper cited remarks by Vice President Ulises Rosales del Toro at a meeting with leaders of the Union of Young Communists, or UJC, at which he said that 30,000 young people had entered the agrarian sector.

Rosales del Toro, who up until June was agriculture minister, said that the figure was achieved "when some skeptics thought it could not be reached."

In addition, he emphasized that the UJC leaders were being counted upon to "mobilize the masses of youth" with the aim of strengthening the economy and achieving efficiency and good quality in production.

In August, Juventud Rebelde, the voice of the UJC, reported that young people are in the majority at present in requesting newly available farm land.

According to government figures, people under 35 have acquired more than 50 percent of the more tan 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) distributed since 2008, when the government approved a law promoting the turning over of idle state lands to individuals to make those territories productive.

President Castro has insisted on a number of occasions that food production is a "national security" matter and has reiterated his effort to spur agricultural production on the communist island.

Cuba has been importing more than 80 percent of the food that its 11.2 million citizens consume, and it spends more than $1.5 billion annually on purchasing food from abroad.

Source: http://www.efeamerica.com/309_hispanic-world/878093_100-000-cubans-enter...