Cuban authorities highlight scope of project with international support in livestock farming

HAVANA, Cuba, Apr 1 (ACN) Cuban agriculture officials acknowledged the favorable impact that the LAIF AgroVerde project, financed by the European Union and with the notable participation of the French Development Agency, is having on capacity building and investment facilitation in livestock farming.

Since 2023, in the municipalities of Camagüey, Jimaguayu, Guaimaro and Sibanicu, which make up the dairy basin, a group of agro-ecological actions are being carried out for the benefit of producers and cooperatives, and for such purposes, at the country level, the Bank of Credit and Commerce (Bandec) has also received support.

At a press conference at the Meliá Habana Hotel, Alaimis Martinez Torres, head of International Relations and Collaboration of the Ministry of Agriculture, and Rolando Castro Perez, national coordinator of the project, pointed out that this is a valuable contribution to the sustainable development of the agri-food sector, in transit to a greener future in that central Cuban region.

For her part, Amaya Olivares Zapian, representative of the EU, said that this mechanism donated 7.5 million euros, while French cooperation contributed 25 million euros for investments in Camagüey's livestock and another similar amount as a line of credit to Bandec, to finance sustainable agricultural projects.

The parties explained that the EU's LAIF-AgroVerde (Latin America Investment Fund) has four main objectives; two of them are the development of livestock farming that is resilient to climate change and adapted to the scarcity of imported resources, and the technical-economic integration of investment processes at the farm and cooperative levels.

The other objectives are the sustainable management of marabu through the development of agrosilvopastoral systems, and the strengthening of Bandec's capacity to develop credit offers to facilitate the agroecological transition and access to national and international green funds.