• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 06 / 05 / 2011

---

HAVANA, Cuba, Jun 4 (acn) Juan Francisco Ramírez, director of the Pasture and Forage Research Institute (IPF) in Villa Clara province,said Cuban ranchers must understand that growing quality pasture is needed to improve the raising of cattle.

"The little use they give to the seed farms we have in this province (six) where we grow over 700 varieties of grass and leguminous plants, show their lack of knowledge about this" he told ACN news agency.

For over 16 years specialists from this institute have taught ranchers on the importance of planting these seeds in their lands,but they still don't use them, he said.

On the other hand, those who implemented the new techniques improved exponentially.

The president of the Desembarco del Granma Cooperative Israel Aguila said they had in 1993 26 hectares to grow sugar cane and King grass.

"We started to plant the seeds we bought in the farms belonging to the IPF and developed mix plantations that now cover over 200 hectares" he said.

This has brought us, along the improvement of the cattle races, an important increase in the number of heads we have now, he added.

"Some 15 years ago, when we started to work on this, we were producing 385,000 liters of milk a year, while now we surpass 1million."

He explained they planted the seeds in all their pastures, thus guaranteeing food all year round for their cattle.


Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/124058