Food trade survives political hurdles

Cuba expects to sign deals worth $150 million with American food producers at talks starting on Monday that point to sustained U.S. interest in the Cuban market despite political hurdles.

Uncertainty over the fate of ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro caused a "hiccup," trade consultant Kirby Jones said, but business has continued seamlessly under the caretaker government of his brother Raul Castro, and is picking up.

One U.S. farm state delegation after another has gone to Havana this year to pitch sales of wheat, corn, beans, peas, lentils, chicken and other products needed by communist Cuba to feed its people.

The governors of Nebraska and Idaho visited Havana and Delaware sent its first trade mission eyeing a new market. Last week, North Dakota won agreements to supply seed potatoes and red spring wheat. A delegation from Alabama arrived on Friday.

U.S. sales to Cuba are allowed on a cash-only basis under an exception to the embargo enforced against Castro's leftist government since 1962. Despite the hostility between Washington and Havana, exports have totaled $1.55 billion since 2001.

But sales fell 10 percent in 2005 to $350 million, and dipped further last year to $340 million, a decline blamed on a 2005 decision by the Bush administration to require Cuba to pay before its foods shipments can leave U.S. ports.

Pedro Alvarez, head of Cuba's food import agency Alimport, is confident that sales will grow this year. He said 250 agribusiness executives, food exporters and farm group leaders will meet in Havana for three days to negotiate new contracts.

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