Por Iris Quintero Zulueta 
The Santa Gertrudis Grain Drying Base Business Unit, in the municipality of Colón, is an investment by the Matanzas Grain Agroindustrial Company designed to provide services in the northern area of the province and is approaching its start-up after nine years of its execution has begun.
Yuri Enrique Rivera holds the position of main specialist at the UEB, and explains that the plant is at 95% technical availability, with pilot tests carried out, and its corporate purpose is the drying of grains such as rice, soybeans and corn.
Thirteen plants like these exist in the country with Chinese technology designed for the use of alternative fuels such as grain waste (husk) and considerable savings on diesel.
The potential of the area in rice cultivation, with 31 productive forms, 29 of them dedicated by 86 producers from Martí, Los Arabos and Colón to the cultivation of the in-demand grain, guarantee the raw material for the operation of the plant, which can process about 37 tons daily.
In this same place there was the so-called old Santa Gertrudis dryer. Thus, it maintains the same name, but now modernized in terms of technology, with the possibility of generating jobs and contributing to improving the lives of the community’s residents. (ALH)
Translated by Casterman Medina de Leon