Doctor Sergio Rodríguez Morales Passes Away, Science and Agriculture in Mourning

November 27, 2023

A Member of Merit of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba and senior researcher of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, he was recognized by producers and scientific institutions throughout the country as one of the most capable people in the nation on these matters.

On the evening of this Sunday, November 26, Doctor Sergio Rodríguez Morales, director of the National Institute for Research on Tropical Root Crops (Inivit), passed away suddenly, which constitutes a regrettable loss for Cuban science and agriculture, to which he devoted most of his life.

Sergio, a Member of Merit of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba and senior researcher of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, was recognized by producers and scientific institutions throughout the country as one of the most capable people in the nation on these subjects, which he combined with great humility and simplicity.

Leading Inivit and the National Group for Root Crops of the Ministry of Agriculture, he carried out important extension work with the objective of disseminating the latest advances in science and technology applied to food production, for which reason he was justly described as a scientist with mud on his boots.

For his merits, he was also a member of the Council of State in the Seventh Legislature, in addition to being a deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power for the municipality of Santo Domingo, in the province of Villa Clara.

Rodríguez Morales was from the town of Guayos in Espíritu Santo, and had graduated in 1967 as an agricultural engineer from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the Central University "Marta Abreu" of Las Villas, an institution that awarded him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa in Agricultural Sciences.

During his fruitful working life, he was designated an innovator with the Greatest Economic Contribution, and received the national Innovation Prize, the Honorary Title of Hero of Labor of the Republic of Cuba, the Literacy Medal, and the Carlos J. Finlay Order.