Cuba has Hidden Export Potential

Cuba has Hidden Export Potential
July 10, 2009

HAVANA TIMES, July 10 (IPS) – Pulling out the stops, Cuba is seeking to
diversify its exports, but it's not an easy road. The country's
technology is obsolete in many of its industries.

The crisis that began in the 1990s has meant obstacles to the
development of new exportable products, and there already exist
important producers of everything – or almost everything – making market
penetration a complex undertaking. Nonetheless, the present global
crisis is forcing the country to pick up the pace since it urgently
needs to increase its foreign revenues.

The Ministry of Iron and Mechanical Industries, founded more than 30
years ago, oversees a dozen groups of executives that direct around 200
industries. A good portion of these have outlined strategies for the
rescue of longtime exportable products and the search for possible
alternatives by applying new developments that result in greater value
added.

Liquid Sugar

For decades, Cuba received technology from the now defunct Soviet Union.
This year, in the island's province of Holguin, a factory belonging to
the Industrial Machinery Group (GIMAC) exported three sorghum
harvesters. These were created experimentally for Russia's Slaviansky
Agroindustrial Complex, which produces pure liquid sugar from "sweet
sorghum."

"Sorghum is a plant with characteristics similar to corn. It's grown in
Europe and India for animal feed, and there are even experiments for its
cultivation taking place in Cuba," explained GIMAC business specialist
Marcelino Gutierrez to the magazine Metánica.

Sorghum can tolerate both drought and damp soil better than most
cereals, and it grows well under a wide range of soil conditions. It
responds favorably to irrigation, achieving excellent yield with little
watering. It requires a minimum of 250 millimeters of water during its
growth cycle, and moderate yields can be obtained with 350 millimeters.
To achieve high yields, however, the demand for water varies between 450
and 600 millimeters, depending on the cycle of the hybrid and
environmental conditions.

Through a study of different varieties it was possible to obtain
so-called sweet sorghum. Scientists with the Slaviansky Complex in
Russia created a technology using a process similar to that employed in
the milling of sugar cane. This allows the sorghum juice to be extracted
and – thanks to a molecular type of physical-chemical method – they can
separate sugar's component substances: sucrose, glucose and water.

However, having the technological capacity to produce sugar from the
little-used raw material was not enough. The Russian company lacked the
technology for automated harvesting and was forced to use European
harvesters that didn't fully accommodate the specific characteristics of
sorghum.

As Gutierrez explained, "German harvesters, for example, cut the sorghum
into very small pieces, which caused a process of acidification of the
juice and didn't allow its storage for more than a few days," before
milling.

The search for existing technologies for high-yield sorghum harvesting
failed to identify equipment that could take advantage of the process
for producing greater quantities of juice.

In the middle of the investigation, a team member recalled that Cuba had
developed a factory in the 1980s for the production of sugar cane
harvesters using technology from the former Soviet Union. Inquiries
revealed that that factory remained active and had continued to
manufacture sugar cane harvesters.

Pursuing that path, in January 2008 a delegation from the Russian
complex visited Cuba. The group was made up managers, trades-people and
scientists from the Boronezh Agricultural University, which was linked
to the technological process. The exchanges took place under the
coordination of the Cuban embassy in Moscow and the island's Chamber of
Commerce.

The visitors studied the characteristics of the Cuban harvesters,
keeping in mind a kind of technology that would allow them to carry out
the automated harvesting of sorghum.

After several technical exchanges, in April 2008 the Slaviansky
Agroindustrial Complex made an official application to Cuban authorities
for the purchase of three Kortep 3500 harvesters.

"This is new-generation equipment, of which two had been manufactured
through prototypes," said Gutierrez. "These were exported and are
cutting cane in Venezuela. Because of the machines' characteristics, the
Russian managers believed they were the technology most fitting for
harvesting sorghum," the specialist in exports added. In addition, the
Russians asked to work jointly with the Cubans on a modification process
to adapt these machineries to cut sorghum.

Adaptation

"Sugar cane is harvested with a separation between furrows of 150
centimeters, while with sorghum the maximum distance is 70 centimeters.
This is why the cutting nose of the Cuban machines had to be enlarged to
cover three furrows. We had to change the characteristics of the machine
to match those of the plant," Gutierrez explained.

On the other hand, he added, although the shaft of sorghum resembles
that of corn, it is less dense and weighs less than sugar cane. Because
of this, the specialists had to adapt the vegetable mass collecting
mechanisms, an internal process of cutting, transferred through the
transporters of the machine and the extraction into the container truck,
to ensure shafts didn't get left in the field.

"In turn, the team of engineers at the Holguín Sugar Cane Harvesters
Factory carried out a working visit to Boronezh, in south-central
Russia, where they visited fields and verified the characteristics of
the process," he pointed out.

With this new knowledge, the technical modification of the equipment was
designed and the production process begun. "From April until the end of
July, in about 115-120 days, starting from zero, an international
purchase-sale contract was fulfilled. This involved importing
attachments such as motors, hydraulic components, tires and metals; and
our having to process, fit out, assemble and deliver to the port on
August 2 — according to the terms of the contract — the three modified
KTO Kortep 3500 harvesters in response to the demands of the buyer,"
Gutierrez explained.

Once finished, the harvester machines were transported from Holguín to
Havana from where embarked. Until that moment the process had proceeded
with the wind to its back, but a Caribbean hurricane stopped the
machines in the Bahamas, preventing them from arriving on the arranged
date, which would have allowed a longer trail period.

According to Gutierrez, "Despite the inconveniences due to weather, in
October the machines made it to the Boronezh region, to the town of
Buturlinovka, where the sugar factory and sorghum fields are located.

By telephone, we received news that the equipment had been tested on 25
acres that had been reserved for them and that they cut the sorghum well."

More Than Exporting

The process was achieved in a very short period and can be considered a
tremendous accomplishment by the technicians, who demonstrated that
Cuban industry can indeed establish and complete its goals, in short
periods, producing technologies and products of high value added.

"To achieve in such brief time the conception of the initiative, the
organization of the production outline – piece by piece, attachment by
attachment –, then assembling the equipment, testing each one of the
attachments separately as well as the dynamics of the equipment,
demanded extra from all links of the process.

To realize that objective, evidently the factory applied practically its
entire work force, laboring without rest," noted the specialist of the
Agricultural Machinery Group.

"To achieve a symbiosis between mechanics, welders, metalworkers,
engineers, technicians, auxiliary staff and the management, constituted
an example of how when a community unites and offers its intelligence
and organization — even with old equipment, obsolete technology, and
lathes with many years of use — but applying its ingenuity and
innovations, results like this can be achieved."

Gutierrez sees the main achievement of this operation it is not simply
having exported three harvesters, but also having demonstrated that
quality harvesters and technologically competitive equipment can be
produced for export as well as for the domestic market, where there is
plenty demand.

This operation was able to open the path to new orders from the distant
town of Buturlinovka – so why not further? In this case, the clients
sought out the suppliers, but it could be the inverse: Cuba could
continue offering the world its possibilities to respond to the demand
for equipment and services, which would return in the form of greater
revenue. By converting these still isolated examples into daily
practice, the country could increase its overseas sales, which would
help to reverse the current imbalance in its foreign trade.

A Havana Times translation of the IPS original in Spanish.
Cuba has Hidden Export Potential - Havana Times.org (10 July 2009)
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=11391