Tour offers firsthand look at Cuba

CUBA - Doyle Lentz has traveled overseas before to promote barley and other U.S. feed grains. But until this summer, he’d never been to Cuba. “You can set your watch back 56 years. It’s still like 1959 there,” he says of the island nation with which he and other U.S. agriculturalists hope to do more trading.
The U.S. has had a decades-long ban on trade with communist Cuba, which has seen relatively little economic and technological advancement in the past half century. Lentz, a Rolla, N.D., farmer and president of the North Dakota Barley Council, was one of nine farmer-leaders and staff members from the Barley Council, the U.S. Grains Council and the National Corn Growers Association who visited Cuba recently to learn more about expanding U.S. coarse grains exports if trade between the two countries is fully normalized. Lentz, who talked with Agweek after he returned home, described Cuban agriculture as “very antiquated. Corn and soybeans were planted by hand. It was harvested by hand. They have center-pivot irrigation, but not other technology to go with it.” Still, he and other U.S. farmers on the trade trip “were impressed by the (Cuban) farmers. They were knowledgeable,” he says.. Lentz emphasises that he represented U.S. feed grain in general, not barley, on the trip. “I had to put on more than my barley hat on this one,” he says. The thinking is, Cuba needs to generate more income from tourists - but also needs to raise more meat for them to eat. Since Cuban farmers can’t raise enough feed grains to provide all the additional meat, the country will need to import more corn and other feed - “and the United States is only 90 miles away,” he says. Cuba has the potential to become the 12th biggest export market for U.S. corn, according to what Lentz has been told. Boosting Cuba’s tourist industry also will increase opportunities to increase sales and exports of U.S. beer, of which barley is a crucial ingredient, Lentz says.CUBA - Doyle Lentz has traveled overseas before to promote barley and other U.S. feed grains. But until this summer, he’d never been to Cuba.“You can set your watch back 56 years. It’s still like 1959 there,” he says of the island nation with which he and other U.S. agriculturalists hope to do more trading.
The U.S. has had a decades-long ban on trade with communist Cuba, which has seen relatively little economic and technological advancement in the past half century.Lentz, a Rolla, N.D., farmer and president of the North Dakota Barley Council, was one of nine farmer-leaders and staff members from the Barley Council, the U.S. Grains Council and the National Corn Growers Association who visited Cuba recently to learn more about expanding U.S. coarse grains exports if trade between the two countries is fully normalized.Lentz, who talked with Agweek after he returned home, described Cuban agriculture as “very antiquated. Corn and soybeans were planted by hand. It was harvested by hand. They have center-pivot irrigation, but not other technology to go with it.”Still, he and other U.S. farmers on the trade trip “were impressed by the (Cuban) farmers. They were knowledgeable,” he says..Lentz emphasises that he represented U.S. feed grain in general, not barley, on the trip. “I had to put on more than my barley hat on this one,” he says.The thinking is, Cuba needs to generate more income from tourists - but also needs to raise more meat for them to eat. Since Cuban farmers can’t raise enough feed grains to provide all the additional meat, the country will need to import more corn and other feed - “and the United States is only 90 miles away,” he says.Cuba has the potential to become the 12th biggest export market for U.S. corn, according to what Lentz has been told.Boosting Cuba’s tourist industry also will increase opportunities to increase sales and exports of U.S. beer, of which barley is a crucial ingredient, Lentz says.