Grains Council Visits Cuba

Grains Council Visits Cuba
POSTED 5:55 AM, JULY 15, 2015, BY STAFF WRITER

President Obama has set a new course to reestablish diplomatic relations
with Cuba, including the sale and export of goods.
The U.S. Grains Council and the National Corn Growers Association
recently sent a joint officer's mission to Cuba. Grains Council Chairman
Ron Gray and others were looking at potential trade markets the U.S.
could fulfill.
Gray says the mission had two primary focuses: to interact with
government officials and to look at agricultural operations in Cuba. He
says the trip to Cuba showed him the Cuban people feel strongly about
re-engaging with the U.S. as a trading partner.
He says, "They're a very creative and entrepreneurial group of people
and they do know how to seek out opportunities and seek out marketing
strategies and would really like the opportunity to engage and trade
with the United States at a lot higher level and a lot more economic
interaction between the two countries."

Gray says the Grains Council will be looking for more opportunities to
expand trade with Cuba.
He points to poultry production there, which he says isn't the most
optimized, "We think that we could create a better production system for
them, or help them create a production system that would allow for a
higher utilization of grain of corn, import corn from the U.S. into
their diet of their poultry industry and thereby create a market by
which we would be selling into Cuba."
Gray says a concern is Brazil, which has an interest and investment into
Cuba port facilities and could start marketing to the Caribbean. He says
lifting the trade embargo could bring those markets to the forefront of
U.S. agriculture.

Source: Grains Council Visits Cuba | whotv.com -
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