These days the people of Havana are hard at work on a project in line with the trend toward freeing the Cuban capital of its agricultural dependence on other provinces. The goal, self-sufficiency in food supplies for Havana is to be implemented through the newly created Havana [Green Belt].
The Green Belt includes approximately 40,000 hectares of land. Of this about 20,000 hectares have been allocated to citrus fruit tree inter-[planted] with coffee. These [are] protected from hurricanes by wind-breaks of sturdy trees such as tamarind, which itself bears an edible [fruit used in] ice-cream and sweets. With its fine soil and total absence of frost there is no reason to doubt Fidel when he says that Havana province will have a citrus fruit production greater than that of the State of Florida.
40 million coffee plants have been planted in the Green Belt alone. Coffee was first introduced into Cuba via Haiti around 1748. By 1833, it reached a production of 641,589 cwt. But the collapse of the slave system and the tariff war between Spain and the United States in 1848 brought about the ruin of the Cuban coffee industry.
Now the Revolution is planting coffee, this time under incomparably superior conditions from a point of view of quality, technique, and variety. The Havana province alone has now outstripped Mexico, planting eight times the annual amount of that country. During October and November twenty to thirty million more coffee seedlings will be planted. This means that Havana province will even have a surplus to export.
Huge plant nurseries, rabbit breeding farms (for skin and meat) a cattle insemination centre, said to be one of the world's most modern, dairies, botanical gardens and even a zoo are quickly changing the face of outer Havana.
A total of eighty reservoirs will be constructed in the Green Belt. Many of these are at present under construction. Large scale irrigation will make possible bumper crops of vegetables, sugar cane, rice and gandul beans. The planting of the latter was begun as a salute to the victorious Tet offensive of the PLAF of South Vietnam. The first gandul seeds were sown by the DRV ambassador and the head of the NLF mission.
All this is the work of thousands of Habaneros who have been carrying out a systematic invasion [of the surrounding countryside, turning it into] productive areas. The [voluntary] mass-scale incorporation of the people into agricultural work is an example of the high degree of revolutionary awareness the Cubans possess. Pressure and material incentives are not needed to advance the revolution. Taking up hoes, picks, shovels, and planting bags the agricultural army fights to overcome underdevelopment.