Cuba buys Nebraska wheat, pushes for normal trade

Cuba buys Nebraska wheat, pushes for normal trade
Tuesday, March 27, 2007, 8:26 AM
by Peter Shinn

Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman and more than two-dozen Nebraska
agribusiness professionals and government officials arrived in Havana,
Cuba Monday, with a single-minded goal of generating additional
agricultural sales to Cuba. Heineman's visit, his third as governor, has
generated intense media scrutiny and yielded some immediate results, as
well.

Pedro Alvarez, Cuba's chief procurement officer and long-time head of
Alimport, got the negotiations started off quickly between his
professional purchasers and the Nebraska delegation. During an opening
ceremony at the National Hotel, Alvarez promised to buy 75,000 tonnes of
wheat from Nebraska and said that was just the beginning.

"I can announce we will be signing for 75,000 tonnes of U.S. wheat from
Nebraska, among other products," proclaimed Alvarez.

Ahead of Monday afternoon's ceremony, at least a half dozen camera crews
and even more journalists from CNN, Reuters, the AP, several European
news agency and Cuban media descended on Heineman while the Nebraska
delegation awaited clearance through customs. The reasons for the
stepped-up media interest in Heineman's visit are open to question. In
any event, Heineman told Brownfield he'd never seen anything like it.

"I think this is the most press interest that we've ever seen," Heineman
said. "I'm excited about it - that means they have a high interest in
what we're doing," he added. "It also, I think, speaks to the issue that
Nebraska has been very successful in expanding this relationship and
this partnership with Cuba."

Of course, current U.S. policy makes trading with Cuba difficult. Cuba,
for example, must pay in cash and sales are restricted to agricultural
and medical goods. Some have suggested that with Fidel Castro in poor
health, a change in Cuban leadership could lead to a less restrictive
U.S. policy. But Heineman won't discuss the matter.

"I try not to get into those issues," Heineman said. "I'm here to help
my farmers and ranchers and ship more Nebraska ag products down here if
it makes sense for Cuba, and that's what we're going to work on."

That's a somewhat divergent view from that of Pedro Alvarez, who gave a
detailed presentation Monday evening on the reasons the U.S. should end
its decades-long embargo on Cuba. Alvarez said repeatedly he wasn't a
politician. But he also hammered home the point that Cuba could be a
much larger market for U.S. ag goods if current restrictions on trade
were lifted. And he urged the U.S. delegation to push for a change in
U.S. policy to Cuba.

Afterward his presentation, Alvarez told Brownfield someone would
benefit from Cuban economic growth. And he suggested other international
ag producers see U.S. farmers and ranchers as a threat to their business.

"Competitors of the U.S. farming economy become worried every time they
see Cuba becoming closer to U.S. farmers," said Alvarez.

Opinions vary as to whether a potential change in leadership here in
Cuba could usher in a new era of U.S. – Cuban ag trade. Various pieces
of legislation aimed at liberalizing trade with Cuba have been
introduced by a wide range of U.S. lawmakers over the years and only
one, the measure that allowed the current level of limited trade with
Cuba, passed Congress in 2000. And Kirby Jones, President of the
U.S.–Cuba Trade Association, tells Brownfield the change of leadership
in the U.S. Congress may have more impact in the near term than any
potential change in Cuba's regime.

"The problem has been the leadership, the previous years, has prevented
votes," Jones explained. "I think now we have a different situation - we
have a new leadership in which, over the years, has been very supportive
of changing the policy."

Whether that proves true or not, what seems clear is that Cuban
officials want access to U.S. agricultural goods. Ricardo Alarcon is the
President of the Cuban People's Congress. He's widely regarded as the
number-three man in the country, and he met Monday afternoon with
Heineman and other top Nebraska government officials. During the
meeting, Alarcon took questions from the journalists accompanying the
Nebraska delegation. He told Brownfield he's confident U.S.-Cuban
relations will return to normal, eventually.

"You will - you are young enough to be witness - and you will be witness
of a normalization of relations between the two countries," Alarcon
predicted. "And when that day comes, people will remember those who were
wise enough to develop and preserve those friendly links in the bad
times," he added in an apparent reference to Heineman.

Ethanol came up at the meeting yesterday evening between Alarcon and
Heineman, as well. Alarcon had heard about Nebraska's booming ethanol
industry and wanted to make sure Nebraska couldn't use dry edible beans
to make the renewable fuel. Alarcon told Brownfield he had been
concerned because rice and beans are a staple part of the Cuban diet.

"I just asked him a very specific and direct question: 'Can you produce
ethanol from beans?'" explained Alarcon. "And I was happy to learn, so
far, that's impossible."

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