Cuban official calls to reduce food imports

HAVANA - Cuba should reduce its increasing food imports, Vice President Esteban Lazo was quoted as saying by official daily Granma on Monday.

Lazo made the remarks during his visit to the La Yaraguana farm, one of the major agricultural centers in the country's eastern province of Holguin.

Lazo said Cuba should develop its potentials to produce crops and import only those foods the island can not produce.

The Caribbean island country spends about $2 billion every year on food imports to meet domestic demand.

Cuban President Raul Castro has constantly said that food supply concerns national security and the country can not continue to afford that amount of money every year after having suffered a serious economic crisis for two decades.

Castro has adopted a series of policies to develop the country's agriculture such as giving state-controlled idle land to private producers, granting loans to producers and removing bureaucratic obstacles for farmers to sell their products.