Wikipedia
Zafra is a town situated in the Province of Badajoz ( Extremadura, Spain), and the capital of the comarca of Zafra - Río Bodión. It has a population of 16,677, according to the 2011 census.
Zafra is the hometown of Fray Ruy Lopez, author of one of the first European treatises on chess, and the humanist and arbitrist Pedro de Valencia.
The zafra refers to the late summer or early autumn harvest and is a common term in countries with Arabic or Spanish influence.
In the Caribbean, the term generally refers to the sugar cane harvest (Rojas: 226). There, the zafra runs from January through May (Gorry and Stanley: 141), whereas in the Mediterranean it occurs in September to October. In each case, however, the zafra was closely tied to the life cycle of sugar. Because in the Caribbean cane is ready for harvest at a time of year different from in Spain or North Africa, the meaning of the term has shifted.
The term became well-known internationally during the 1960s due to its importance in Cuba. Many leftists visited Cuba during the zafra season to help harvest sugar cane, Cuba's principal crop. The Cuban government for several decades made the La Gran Zafra 'The Great Zafra' a centerpiece of both its economic policy and its international relations campaign. Each year, the government urged everyone to help make the zafra the biggest ever. Schools were often closed, and urban residents frequently relocated to the countryside to assist with the harvest. 1 In particular, the goal of reaching the Ten Million Ton Zafra was as much a commonplace of Cuban propaganda as were the apologies and explanations for why the goal was not reached (Pollitt). The national mobilization of the 1970 zafra and its immediate aftermath is the major historical context for the autobiography Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution (2004) by New York Review of Books journalist Alma Guillermoprieto.
Zafra may mean:
- Zafra is a city in Badajoz, Spain.
- Zafra (agriculture) refers to harvest time, especially that of sugar in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.
- Zafra (film) -1958 Argentine film
- Zafra : a gastropod genus in the family Columbellidae
Zafra is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Columbellidae, the dove snails.