2023-11-26 00:19:45
The passionate dedication to human and animal nutrition, given its relationship with people’s health and lives, always accompanied Fidel Castro, even until the last years of his existence.
In mid-1958, faced with the imminent military offensive of the Batista tyranny in the Sierra Maestra, the Commander in Chief did not rule out a total blockade by the enemy of the area of the main rebel stronghold and a prolonged armed resistance. He then ordered a series of measures to guarantee the feeding of the peasants, the troops and the flocks.
After the victory of 1959, in many territories of the country, the young leader, together with the great political, state and military responsibilities, undertook plans for agricultural experimentation and production, which he controlled in detail.
One day in mid-1963, several vehicles, one of which Fidel was traveling in, stopped in front of the headquarters of the Regional Committee of the Party in San José de las Lajas. The Commander in Chief indicated to call the then first secretary of the political organization, Damián Alfonso González, and took him with him.
The other members of the party leadership were happy and at the same time with many questions, hopeful that in the afternoon we would have answers; but it didn’t happen that day, nor the next. Between jokes we already considered him “kidnapped”; but on the third, when the cars stopped in front of our place on the way back, Damián got out of the main car.
Once released, our companion – one of the best people I have ever met – arrived disheveled, unshaven, his permanent militia boots very muddy, with a smile from ear to ear and a folder full of papers. He summoned us immediately to communicate a new task.
It was about undertaking three agricultural experimentation and exploitation projects in the area that the Academy of Sciences of a friendly country had sent to Cuba: an intensive cultivation of fruit trees; another for raising rabbits and the third consisted of planting trees for medicinal purposes whose first fruits would be obtained 100 years after planting!
Those of us present were not very surprised by the topic, since almost all of us, new political leaders, had taken courses on dairy cattle management and were aware of other crops.
Fidel sent us books related to the subject, such as those by the French scientist André Voisin, and frequently called us to visit places where the progress of the plans could be seen, such as the “Recompensa” farm, in Artemisa, in whose areas established intensive grazing of cows for milk production.
Fidel’s presence was familiar in the territory from the times when he toured Havana when it was a single province with 26 municipalities, including those of the capital. As a young leader of the Orthodox Party, he considered that the changes that the country demanded could be achieved through elections, but the military coup of March 10, 1952 closed all hope in that regard.
The execution of the three aforementioned projects involved the immediate execution of a set of urgent tasks that included other sectors, mainly agriculture, such as the location and preparation of the land, the acquisition of tens of thousands of citrus seedlings, and the construction of hutches with certain requirements in their design.
The great transformations of those times, far from peaceful, led many of us to fulfill other missions; But they always remained among my memories, the enthusiasm, seriousness and foresight that comrade Fidel always put into everything he did, while turning the work into a great school for cadres through which hundreds of colleagues also passed. kidnapped”, among them quite a few journalists.
On another anniversary of the physical departure of the Commander in Chief, I wanted to relate these youthful memories, precisely when the Revolution, in no less difficult times, is led by women and men arising from the values that the Commander in Chief sowed in our society.
Use:
Damián Alfonso González, who died in 2016, was a prominent leader of the Cuban Communist Party. He joined the PSP in 1954, was secretary of Organization of the Association of Young Rebels, first secretary of the Party in the province of Granma and member of the Central Committee, among other responsibilities. His brother Demetrio died in the sabotage of the Cubana plane in Barbados.
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