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Highlights From Cuban, U.S. Ag Trade Discussions
USAgNet - 11/20/2018

Delegates from the U.S. agriculture industry were in Cuba last week for the Cuba-U.S. Agriculture Business Conference. The conference brought about much interest from the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cuban media.

Representing the soybean, corn, wheat, poultry, potato, rice, sorghum and barley industries, the 20 conference participants met with Cuban government officials and farmers on November 8-10, 2018.

While about 30% of Cuba's 42,000 square miles of land area is currently used for farming, Cuban farmers do not have access to the latest technologies, equipment and inputs to reach their yield potential.

The majority of the food production in Cuba is done through farmer-owned cooperatives, but it's not sufficient. Due to the climate, there is no wheat grown commercially. In fact, much of the food for Cuba's 11 million people and 4 million annual tourists must be imported, including an estimated 30 million bushels of wheat, which comes primarily from the EU and Canada.

The traditional Cuban diet is made up of rice, black beans, chicken, bread and locally-produced fruits and root vegetables.

According to Alejandro Mustelier Zamora, chairman and CEO of Alimport, Cuba's food importing enterprise, "When buying grains from Argentina, it takes a long time to get here and affects the quality of the food we import." Rice imported from Japan can take up to five months to arrive.

There are many advantages of importing food from the United States, most notably the proximity in terms of getting high quality food in a timely and freight-efficient manner.

Cuba can buy products from the U.S. and finance the sale until the product arrives in Cuba, with one exception - food. Food purchases, which have been allowed since 2000, must be paid for up front, before the ships are allowed to sail. U.S. banks are allowed to provide direct financing for exports of any other product except agricultural commodities.


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