Havana__ Cuban farmers celebrate today the 58th anniversary of the First Agrarian Reform Law, which benefited more than 200,000 families exploited by latifundia, Prensa Latina reports.

That norm, signed by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, allowed the Cubans to own extensions of land that were in the hands of foreign companies, mainly Americans.

The Agrarian Reform was accompanied by technical advice, access to bank loans with low interest rates, agricultural insurance, fair prices for farmers' production and safe markets.

Much more than a land parcel, the norm dignified the lives of men and women in rural areas, where free education and health also came.

According to historical notes, in the 1950s the countryside in Cuba showed the concentration of arable land in few hands, and most of those who worked did not own their property; others obtained low wages or lacked employment and lived in miserable conditions.

With the free delivery of one hundred thousand titles of property, the old rent of the soil was thus disappeared.

This is how one of the postulates raised in the program document History Will Absolve me, a plea for self-defense pronounced by Fidel Castro in the trial for the events of the Moncada in 1953, materializes.

The agrarian reform distributed among the peasants the realengos of state property and delivered the lands of private domain leased to those who actually worked them, as long as the plots did not exceed five caballerias or 67 hectares.

Also on May 17, the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), an organization of the peasantry, turns 56 years old.

It has the challenge of achieving greater productivity and efficiency in the tasks of food security.

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