Vietnam pledged on Monday to help Cuba boost rice production through 2015 in a cooperation accord signed by the two Communist allies during a visit by Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet.
No details of the agreement were available.
Vietnamese technicians have worked for a number of years in Cuba helping small farmers develop the crop. Vietnam reported that in 2008 its technicians were at work in six of Cuba's 14 provinces and were instrumental in obtaining rice yields of up to nine tonnes per hectare .
The new agreement likely expands the already existing assistance, local analysts said.
Cuban President Raul Castro has declared the reduction of the island's dependence on food imports a matter of national security and made it a centerpiece of his economic policy.
Castro, who took over for his older brother Fidel Castro in February 2008, has increased what the state pays for crops, decentralized agricultural decision making and leased vacant state lands to farmers and individuals.
Cuba spent $2.2 billion last year to buy food, including $700 million for rice and beans combined. It imports about 70 percent of its food.
Government plans call for increasing production of rice, which is a staple of the Cuban diet, and reducing rice imports by 50 percent over five years.
Cubans consume an average of 132 lbs of rice a year. The government subsidizes the cost through a ration system.
Cuba produced 195,000 tonnes of consumable rice in all of 2008 and imported 567,000 tonnes, most of it from Vietnam's state-run Northern Food Corp, under preferential financial terms.
Rice production was up 15.4 percent to 98,000 tonnes and the area planted to rice rose by 43.8 percent through July compared with the same period in 2008, the government reported.
Most land in Cuba remains in state hands, but private farmers and cooperatives own some 20 percent.
The state controls the wholesale purchase and retail distribution of between 80 percent and 90 percent of all that is produced.
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