By: Luis Bustamante, U.S. Grains Council Marketing Specialist for the Western Hemisphere
Something many thought was unthinkable happened this April when the U.S. Grains Council (USGC) escorted grain importers, embassy officials and high-ranking officials from Cuba to the United States for a mission to examine the U.S. grain export system.
During the team’s tour, we discovered that one of the team members, Juan-Jose Leon-Vega, had a lifelong passion and commitment to agriculture. Born to a farm family in inland Cuba, agriculture has been involved in his entire career.
He has founded and led farmer organizations, represented small farmers in Havana and was appointed ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) from 1988 to 1994. Since 1994, Leon-Vega has served as the Minister of International Affairs for Cuba’s Ministry of Agriculture.
Our first night in Washington was as one would expect, with team bonding, during which agendas, questions, objectives and key contacts were discussed and of course, we had a photo opportunity at the White House. By the end of the evening, we were ready to start the trip that took us from Washington, D.C., to St. Louis and finally to New Orleans.
Following our dinner, Leon-Vega asked if he could be woken up at 5 a.m. So, we arranged for the front desk to wake him three hours in advance of the official start the mission - after all, when you were a farmer, customs like waking up early are hard to forget.
The next day, the team visited corn and soybean farmers in Maryland. Chip Councell, USGC vice chairman, personally received the Cuban delegation on his family farm and spoke of the corn yields he receives.
Team members were awed and asked repeatedly, “Are those yields for real?”
“We will never reach 11 to 12 metric tons per hectare (175 to 192 bushels per acre) corn yields, but if we could at least increase our production to 5 to 6 tons per hectare (80 to 96 bushels per acre), that will certainly provide relief for the Cuban people without affecting imports,” Leon-Vega said.
Current corn yields in Cuba are 2 tons per hectare (32 bushels per acre).
In addition to yields, technological advancements and logistic networks available to U.S. farmers were of particular interest to the Cuban delegation.
Leon-Vega shared that during a prior trip by Council leaders to Cuba, they had seen a farmer with a 1949 John Deere tractor in mint condition. While this story was filled with nostalgia, the anecdote also depicts the current state of the Cuban agriculture industry.
But agriculture in Cuba is expected to grow, with 4 million tourists expected to visit Cuba when barriers to travel are removed, increasing meat, dairy and poultry demand that could lead to a 40 percent increase in demand for coarse grains and co-products.
At the end of the day, given the political willpower, trade can improve lives in Cuba. With only 660 miles separating New Orleans from the Port of Mariel located in Cuba, the United States has the chance to become the island nation’s preferred trading partner.
Or, as Alejandro Cardet, ALIMPORT vice president of operations, told us: “Softly push a vessel in New Orleans, and it will reach Cuba the next day.”
After more than 1,200 pictures and a lot of memories made, the question remained: what would happen to U.S.-Cuba grain trade if there weren’t trade difficulties?
Following this mission, the Council is making plans to continue its work in Cuba through grain procurement and risk management courses, seminars, feeding trials and assessments.
Our plans aim to seize the momentum built from this team’s travel to the United States and generate more opportunities for future collaboration. However, the work is never done.
Click here to view photos from this team's visit to the United States.