For sake of farmers, lift the Cuba ban
By Bob Stallman
A bill moving through the U.S. House would lift America’s last travel ban on Cuba, and in the process, lead to more agricultural exports to the island.
Travel to Cuba by Americans, barred for more than four decades, has a direct and indisputable connection to increasing the sale of U.S.-grown food to Cuba. To understand the growth potential, it’s important first to understand what’s holding U.S. exports to Cuba back.
Due to our own regulatory hurdles, Cuba must pay cash in advance, through a third-country bank, before goods can even be shipped. These hurdles introduce uncertainty, delay and, of course, cost to U.S. exports, which should be the first choice to meet Cuba’s food needs.
Add to these obstacles the fact that Cuba faces a liquidity crunch. That means it has less cash to buy food for the Cuban people, and much of what it does buy is now sourced from our foreign competitors who offer Cuba credit. U.S. food exports to Cuba were down by a quarter in 2009, and down by another 50 percent in the first quarter of 2010 alone.
But it doesn’t have to be this way for the Cuban people, or for American agriculture. According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, before the worldwide economic downturn the value of Cuban agricultural imports more than tripled, from approximately $500 million in 2000 to more than $1.8 billion in 2008. Economists at Texas A&M University estimate that passage of this Cuba trade bill would boost U.S. agricultural sales to that nation by $365 million per year, with an additional $739 million in additional business activity, creating approximately 6,000 new American jobs.
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