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By Mikkel Pates. Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald.
The Miami Herald, July 26,
2002.
HAVANA - A historic North Dakota agricultural trade delegation to Cuba, led
by Gov. John Hoeven, finished with a document signing ceremony Thursday in which
the North Dakota Farm Bureau promised to help consummate sales of state farm
products totaling about $2 million.
The four-day visit, organized by the North Dakota Farm Bureau, was designed
to strengthen trade possibilities with a country that has been out of the loop
with the U.S. government for more than four decades because of its
socialist/communist government.
The North Dakotans ended their visit with a ceremonial signing of sales "agreements
to purchase" designed to lead to deals on 500 tons of chickpeas, 500 tons
of lentils, 4,000 tons of barley and 5,000 tons of green or yellow peas, with a
total value of over $2 million.
The commodities together would fill 128 rail cars. The North Dakota Farm
Bureau is acting as a "facilitator" between North Dakota sellers
and Alimport, the government-owned Cuban company that handles the country's
imports of food.
"We're not sales agents, we're a representative organization,"
said Eric Aasmundstad, president of the North Dakota Farm Bureau. Aasmundstad
and Hoeven had verbal agreements that they said would commit Alimport to buying
products from North Dakotans, but leave the details to be confirmed by the
actual sellers, and perhaps through the aid of experienced middlemen with
appropriate financial backing.
What's next
"We're going to take these prices home, the volumes and prices you're
willing to pay, to export companies, so they will know what they have to do,
when you want it, and we're going to do that upon our return home,"
Aasmundstad told Alimport officials Thursday.
"These people can work to try to give you this product at this price.
That's what we're going to do."
Pedro Alvarez, chairman and chief executive officer of Alimport, Cuba's
trading company, used a baseball reference to describe the result as a "warmup"
for potential increased sales between the North Dakota and Cuba. It was only one
of numerous short-term delays that participants believe will lead to longer-term
advancement of freer trade.
The Cubans initially wanted the Farm Bureau to agree to solid, legal deals,
but in the end settled for the ceremonial deals.
Feverish activities
The deals marked the end of four days feverish activities. An early
highlight was the Tuesday opening of a cargo container with large sample lots of
five commodities - spring wheat, wheat flour, green peas, yellow peas and barley
- that the Cubans would like to buy more of.
The group toured nearby wheat mills, a pasta factory and a bountiful citrus
and vegetable cooperative, with thousands of acres of impressive groves. The
Farm Bureau had preceded the week's visit in Cuba with a fanfare and the
shipping of a 20-ton "container," involving four tons each of hard red
spring wheat, wheat flour, green peas, yellow peas and barley.
Certifications
The Farm Bureau's cargo was expected to make a symbolic statement of North
Dakota agricultural quality and capacity but in the late stages could have
become an embarrassment because the organization hadn't anticipated the need for
required phytosanitary certifications on some of its products.
The wheat and wheat flour didn't require the certifications, but the peas
and barley did. In the end, the North Dakota Agriculture Department back home
helped to complete the certifications, Aasmundstad said. He acknowledged he and
the Farm Bureau hadn't known all he should have known about the phytosanitary
requirements, attributing the oversight to the myriad details of making the trip
happen.
The week also involved sometimes dicey shuttle negotiations between
Aasmundstad and Alvarez, who was in the national U.S. news early this spring
when his visa to travel in the United States was denied by the Bush
administration. Alvarez praised the delegation for "an extremely
professional visit" that will enable North Dakota farmers to increase
exports of staples to Cuba.
Alvarez said that although wheat is not one of the products imported and
that shipments until now have been small and symbolic, the commodity "has
not been overlooked." Alvarez said that although financing couldn't be
arranged for the purchases because of current U.S. policy, and are in cash as
required, "we hope that one day trade will be both ways."
Invited to return
"The Cuban people are a friendly people with both the people of the
United States and North Dakota," he said, inviting the delegation to return
in September, when the Farm Bureau is scheduled to be involved in a first-ever
U.S. Food and Agriculture Exposition.
On the political side, the governor steered clear of statements disloyal to
the Bush administration, which strongly opposes normalizing trade with Cuba
under the Castro administration without changes in Cuban policies, including the
ability for outside companies operating in Cuba to hire their own workers and
for the workers to organize in their own, nonstate unions.
The visit was punctuated on Wednesday with news of a flurry of votes from
the U.S. Congress that - if passed and signed into law - could lead to more
normalized trade. The Cubans seemed cheered by the votes, as well as Hoeven's
visit.
"Just his being here is significant," said one Cuban government
official involved in the event, who spoke on condition he not be identified. The
official said the Cubans understood the governor's political restraints and
expected nothing more than his efforts to promote trade.
The Herald is sharing costs for Pates' trip with the North Dakota Farm
Bureau.
Pates reports on agriculture. Reach him at (701) 297-6869 or
mikkel@corpcomm.net.
The crime is not unheard of; the horse is a new twist. This sort of thing
had been happening to owners of motorcycles; people here say if they didn't pay
up, the motorcycles would not show up even in a séance.
Locals also assume this type of criminal activity has to somehow involve the
police, who they say are only as efficient as they want to be given the degree
of government control prevalent in the country.
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