Since the middle of the year, specialists from the Agroforestry and Coco Enterprise of Baracoa have been preparing the file for the certification of areas as ecological, which also functions as an export hub, Alexei Romero Casas, director of that entity, informed Venceremos.
He said that although all of the municipality’s lands have been free of herbicides and chemical fertilizers for at least five years, work will first be done in the areas of the Alejandro de Humboldt National Park, where as a rule only agroecology techniques are applied.
As part of the preparations, the specific areas that are going to be presented to the international certifying agency and the productive forms involved are defined, soil samples are taken, and work is done on the traceability of field books, health certificates, among other procedures.
Certification, according to international standards, implies a strict review of products and processes, the delimitation of areas, and the avoidance, in addition to those already mentioned, of other synthetic chemicals such as antibiotics and additives, as well as genetically modified organisms.
The manager explained the process is carried out with the advice of Cuban auditors from Contramaestre, who are trained by the certifying agency that previously endorsed the production of organic coffee in that Santiago de Cuba region and they have already made the first contact visit to Baracoa.
The certification of the areas, he added, implies a better positioning of the products from those areas in the market, especially cocoa, coffee and coconut, in a world in which consumers are increasingly interested in healthy, clean and sustainable products with the environment.
Due to the difficulties in acquiring chemical products, and largely due to the rise of bioproducts in the international market, intentions to promote organic agriculture in the country are becoming more and more frequent, especially in exportable items.
Translated by Liubis Balart Martínez
