2023-11-29 15:11:00
When the self-sufficiency of the Leopoldo Reyes Feed Factory Base Business Unit (UEB) arose in 1990, in San Cristóbal, perhaps, the first to cross those grassy areas, they did not imagine that — 33 years later — that impulse would be an essential contribution for feeding the workers in the entity itself and their families.
A Labor Collective of a little more than a dozen workers begins the day from the crow of the rooster, without hours or qualms, because no one painted the task as easy, and they did talk about the need to produce, the reward for satisfying demands and multiply their salaries, perhaps as they never thought possible.
It is a land of six arable hectares (ha.), at kilometer 71.5 of the Havana-Pinar highway, and also near the UEB, it attracts the road cleared of weeds that combines with a central ranchón, raised with guano, wood, and a lot of determination: the place for lunches, management advice and whatever activity the majority decides.
This is how we entered the self-sufficiency of Leopoldo Reyes, at the hands of Osvaldo Duardo Más, who came to stay since 1993, and now leads the Labor Collective, among warehouses of pigs, chickens, quails, pullets; surrounded by mango, acerola, coconut, mamey, avocado, guava, banana, rice, beans, cassava, sweet potato… and above all a lot of consecration.
The pig sheds are a fortress / Photo: Yudaisis Moreno
“The great responsibility of supplying 100 percent of the food in the dining room on a daily basis weighs on our shoulders, since the situation in the country prevents the allocation of the balance of how much we consume. Also every month we sell a module with products from the farm, to the entire group, more than 100 workers,” he says between commitment and pride.
Where the shirt sweats
“If we don’t produce we are on board,” says Adalberto Castro González, with that common naturalness of someone who knows that only rain falls from the sky.
That peasant prefers not to retire yet, despite the years he has worked, he gets up very early, sometimes to the tractor and heading to the furrow, other times to feed birds, and always among the pigs, his greatest responsibility in self-sufficiency.
“I also cook alternative food with vegetables from my own harvest and sweeping feed, to feed the pigs. Other mornings it is my responsibility to sacrifice them and give “joy” to the dining room and also to the workers, since they buy a few pounds, at a very reasonable price.”
The preparation of alternative food such as cassava yogurt is part of Adalberto’s tasks / Photo: Yudaisis Moreno Benítez
Meanwhile, the nights of farrowing also count in his hustle; only he, he assures, “can accompany the pigs in such a sensitive process.”
She cares for 1,700 quails, more than 1,300 pullets and about 750 hens, for which she has plenty of skill and passion and knowledge.
“Every day I collect about 20 files of quail eggs, and another 25 from the pullets. I know the different treatment of each type of bird, how to dose the food and avoid stress; Of course, I have spent almost my entire life as a shipyard, except that now the difference is in the working conditions and salary benefits, being a Labor Collective,” she tells us, pleased.
There they know about biological means to not lose the greenery of the plantations or give space to pests, since they have a contract with the Center for Reproduction of Entomophages and Entomopathogens, of the Agricultural Company of San Cristóbal; They have learned how to combine birds and pigs with some 2,000 tilapia, in a body of water worth multiplying for its usefulness and beauty.
About 20 rows of eggs from the quail, and another 25 from the chicks, are collected daily, and once or twice a month they are sold to the workers / Photo: Yudaisis Moreno
Moral for self-consumption
Michel Ravelo Herrera, director of the UEB Fábrica de Pensos Leopoldo Reyes, recognizes the incorporation of the kitchen-dining room staff into the Labor Collective as a fair decision, with which they are linked to production and feel more stimulated, even in terms of salary. .
“That site today has no limits in terms of development and production. It was a shooting range, it also served as the self-supply of the Comandante Pinares Hospital, but the weeds took it by storm, until it passed to our entity 30 years ago.
“We never let him die, but a while ago we did pay much more attention to him, making him a priority. Here ours and mine intersect, also vice versa. That is the essence capable of making this place imperishable.”
“Many people, workers, workers, managers… care about “mine” but not “ours”, and thus the little piece that corresponds to us does not advance, in order to ultimately advance as a country. Only with collective will will we move forward,” he says, and thus summarizes, perhaps unintentionally, a moral, necessary for everyone’s self-consumption.
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