The American Farm Bureau is constantly moaning and groaning about U.S. policy towards Cuba, claiming that it's an impediment to current agricultural sales to the Castro regime.
Thus, it's nice to hear U.S. producers -- without a political agenda -- tell the truth about the real impediment to current agricultural sales: the Castro regime's food monopoly, Alimport.
According to Kentucky's business periodical, The Lane Report:
LaGrange-based Northland Corp., which sells hardwood lumber, has pursued Cuban business without luck.
"I think there are some definite opportunities, but I tried pursuing some leads for a year and a half after the [2002] exhibition, and for whatever reason I wasn't able to get anything done," said Orn E. Gudmudsson Jr., Northland's export manager. "But that has more to do with the cumbersome process in Cuba than a lack of interest. Personally, I don't find the U.S. regulations that cumbersome. The complicated part is having to go through Alimport, which just adds another layer to the negotiations."
Roger Quarles, president of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative in Lexington, participated in the 2002 Kentucky trade mission. Despite the hype, he said, it amounted to nothing.
The American Farm Bureau's desire to provide billions of dollars in tourism income to the Castro regime -- hoping it'll turn around and buy more U.S. ag products -- amounts to nothing more than a commercial experiment.
And if their hopes are dashed, they have nothing to lose.
However, for the Cuban people, such an experiment would come at a very repressive cost.
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