A total of 632 heads of agricultural cooperatives have been dismissed in a national campaign to boost the agricultural sector, the official daily Granma reported Friday.

The move "was taken to improve the cooperatives' work" by the national assembly of the National Association of Small Farmers of Cuba (ANAP) last Thursday, Granma said.

"A cooperative can not function well if leaders in charge don't work well," ANAP's recently-appointed president, Felix Gonzalez, was quoted as saying.

Gonzalez stressed the need to increase the training of cooperatives' managers in line with the current economic changes on the island.

Agriculture Minister Gustavo Rodriguez said the cooperatives reported a negative balance of 2.112 billion Cuban pesos (88 million U.S. dollars) in 2011 despite the "millions of financial endowments received from the government."

Boosting agricultural production has been considered as a matter of "national security" by President Raul Castro since he took office in 2008 as the nation imports about 80 percent of its food needs at a cost of 2 billion dollars a year.

Castro has warned that the country can not maintain such an expenditure especially due to rising food prices on the international market.