• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 04 / 05 / 2011

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Cuban forestry officials have launched a project to plant coffee in the valleys of Las Tunas province, according to the newspaper La Demajagua. Normally, coffee is grown in mountainous regions.

Twenty hectares (about 50 acres) will be seeded with robusta coffee, "a variety characterized by good yield and adaptability to flat lands," the paper says. Eight one-hectare plots (2.5 acres each) will be seeded in other cities in Las Tunas "as an experiment and a demonstration" to encourage individual planters.

According to the newspaper Trabajadores, Cuba exports about 10 percent of its coffee production, while importing lower-quality coffee from Vietnam, Brazil and other countries for domestic distribution.

Last year, Cuba imported 18,000 tons for domestic consumption. At the rate of 2,400 dollars per ton cited by La Demajagua, that amount of coffee cost the Cuban government 43.2 million dollars.

Cuba was a major producer of coffee in the 1960s, with annual production of as much as 60,000 tons, but the migration of growers from the mountains to the cities, added to climatic factors, affected production negatively. Production in 2010 was 6,000 tons, down from 6,800 tons the previous year.

Source: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2011/04/