Former federal agriculture minister Eugene Whelan remembers the days in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s when Canada sent dairy cattle and genetics to Cuba to help it improve its milk production.
“Fidel Castro had a goal that every Cuban kid would have milk every day,” Whelan reminisced in a late December interview. “We were helping.”
Now, the Canadian government has decided to launch another project to try to help the Cuban dairy industry.
In mid-December, Ottawa announced it is funding a Care Canada project aimed at exporting Canadian dairy expertise to the island nation.
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The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is providing $420,000 to fund the three-year project that ends in December 2011.
Care Canada communications director Kieran Green said his non-governmental organization will provide staff and office support worth $30,000 in addition to the CIDA funding.
As well, a Cuban organization with financial support from its government will contribute services worth $300,000.
According to Care, the project is aimed at helping Cuban dairy farmers improve their operations and increase supplies of milk available to Cuba’s poor.
It said Canadian dairy farmers will provide technical advice, but Dairy Farmers of Canada is not yet officially involved in the project.
Care said the greatest weakness in the Cuban dairy industry is the collection and storage of milk produced on farms.
One part of the project will be to organize pilot projects to improve management, collection, storage and milk quality analysis capacity in two areas of the country.
Care said Canada also will teach by example by outlining ways issues are tackled in the Canadian industry.
A Quebec-based network of co-operatives will lead the project on the ground, sending Quebec producers and dairy industry officials to Cuba to offer advice.
In a statement issued by Care, international operations vice-president Bogdan Dumitru said it is a chance for Canada to export its dairy expertise in the cause of alleviating poverty and hunger.
“Care is very pleased now to be able to employ that expertise in our work fighting global poverty,” he said.
“With this program, Care will boost incomes and nutrition levels for the neediest individuals in Cuba.”
Canada’s dairy genetics work with Cuba began in the 1960s when Albertan Harry Hays was federal agriculture minister in the Lester Pearson government. Hays received a gift of a black stallion from Castro for his support of the program.
