PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Everything is hustling and bustling in the province of Pinar del Rio, some 150 km west from Havana, where one modern rice drying plant is under construction with the support of China.
"We started the earthwork in March 2017, and currently the work is at 65 percent of its execution," the project's main specialist Fernando Gonzalez told Xinhua.
The plant, one of five such supported by China in different parts of the island, will have a drying shed and two storage silos with a capacity of 500 tons each, as well as a laboratory and facilities for the unloading and cleaning of the grain.
The rice drying plant will be able to process 37 tons of rice per day, a staple food in the island country.
Gonzalez, 60, has supervised the construction of the plant and the installation of modern technology provided by the Chinese company Muyang Group who gives professional advice on the assembly of the machinery.
"It is the most modern technology we have, not only in Pinar del Rio, but in the country," Gonzalez said while touring the facilities of the plant.
Gonzalez voiced belief that once the drying plant is operational, it will produce high-quality products without impurities.
At the request of Cuban partners, Chinese specialists incorporated into the design an oven in which rice husk would be burned to provide water vapour to the drying system.
As the husk's ashes are rich in potassium, they would be collected and used as agricultural fertilizer.
An 8-km canal running from the El Punto dam is also under construction, which would irrigate the land over 2,000 hectares.
"Now everything will be close: technical advice, water for irrigation and the rice drying plant. We hope that these possibilities will turn into high production levels," said Jesus Maurence, a specialist of the Pinar del Rio Agroindustrial Grain Company.
With an expected yield of 4.3 tons per hectare, Pinar del Rio will produce around 73,800 tons of wet paddy rice in 2019.
The province aims to grow rice in around 60,000 hectares in 2020, a figure that would match the full production potential within the western end of the island in 1980s.
