“We are succeeding in having peasants create an infrastructure that can be exploited in a sustainable way for many years,” José Luis Díaz Durán, director of Caritas-Matanzas, was quoted as saying in La Voz Católica, a bulletin of the Archdiocese of Miami.
The practice of pig breeding was largely lost when the government eliminated small farms and established massive breeding with feed from the Soviet Union.
Now that the Soviet bloc and its subsidies are long gone, peasants are returning to their grandparents´ method and raising pigs again, especially in the province of Matanzas.
Thomas Garofalo, of the U.S.-based Catholic Relief Services, said the initiative foments the dignity of people, since they are able to feed themselves instead of depending on charity.
