Agriculture specialists in Guantanamo explained that controlling coffee ripening in the current harvest is one of the main difficulties in the coffee plantations in the Cuban easternmost province.
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The most recent report from the territorial state entity about the 2023-2024 harvest warns that ripening exceeds 20 percent (what is permissible) in the Yateras coffee plantations (32) and reaches 19 percent in Maisí.
“The province foresees to have about 100,000 cans of ripe berries today and collects less than 17,000 daily, a collection that would be greater if the incorporation of the workforce increased, which is now 47 percent,” indicates the information from the Coffee and Cacao branch, from the Delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture in Guantanamo.
The report points out that only the Maisí and Imías municipalities have control over ripening season; advises reviewing the actual control in Yateras, and increasing incorporation of workforce in San Antonio del Sur, Manuel Tames, El Salvador and Niceto Pérez.
At present, just over 33 percent of what was planned for this harvest has been collected, which began at the end of last September in Maisí, the largest producer of the coffee grain in the Guantanamo province. The Arabica variety reaches 44 percent collection.
The coffee harvest foresees the amounts to 819,531 cans, of which 618,093 cans of Arabica coffee and 201,437 cans of Robusta, according to the source.
The data shows that the highest percentages of collection compliance to date, in relation to the foreseen plan, are in Baracoa, Maisí and Yateras, in that order.
