Texas rice farmers eager for Cuba trade

Nov. 9, 2005, 11:39PM

Texas rice farmers eager for Cuba trade
Conference urges an easing of U.S. restrictions
By JENALIA MORENO
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

BEAUMONT - Texas rice farmers Charlie Reneau and Bill Dishman are paying twice as much to fuel their tractors and combines as they did two years ago.
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That and falling prices for their products are hurting the pocketbooks of these East Texas farmers.
Hoping to increase the demand for Texas rice and perhaps drive up the grain's prices and their profits, the two farmers are searching for ways to expand their export markets, including one that is just 825 miles away — Cuba.
"There's a desperate need that we have to get back into some of our foreign markets," said Reneau, who's been farming near Beaumont for 25 years. "Without those we're going to be in extremely hard times."
Texas farmers and cattle ranchers gathered at the Texas-Cuba Trade Alliance conference held in Beaumont Wednesday to push for the U.S. to ease trade restrictions with the island nation so Cuba can buy more Texas rice, cattle and milk.
That doesn't seem likely for now, as the Bush administration has tightened restrictions against Cuba, for example, by requiring the country to pay cash before shipments leave U.S. ports.
Kennedy's blockade
Those tougher rules may help explain why U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba may fall for the first time since 2001, when Americans were allowed to sell food and medicine to the country, easing the blockade ordered by President Kennedy more than four decades ago.
Between January and August of this year, U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba totaled $239.7 million. Last year, the U.S. sent $394.3 million worth of agricultural products to the communist-run country.
Black beans and rice
Of those exports sent last year, $64 million was spent on rice for a country where the national dish is moros y crisitanos, meaning Moors and Christians, but also the Cuban name for black beans and rice.
Despite the expected decline in agricultural exports this year, Flynn Adcock, assistant director for Texas A&M University's Center for North American Studies, said there is a potential for Cuba to buy $450 million to $1.2 billion in U.S. food every year if the ban on U.S. tourists traveling to Cuba is lifted.
Of that, $50 million to $60 million could come from Texas farmers and companies, he said.
jenalia.moreno@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3450794