U.S. farm groups see Cuba, with its $2-billion-a-year grocery list, as a neighborhood market for American-grown food. Less attention has been given to the impact of stepped-up food and agriculture trade, says Timeline. “Some agriculture experts worry … that normalizing relations could decimate Cuba’s much-admired, ecologically friendly farming practices.”
In a development forced by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the loss of cheap fertilizer and fuel, Cuba shifted to organic or agro-ecological production of fruits and vegetables, dominated by farmer cooperatives.
U.S. seeds, fertilizer and equipment may re-mold Cuban agriculture, says Timeline; herbicides and anti-sprouting products are a small but growing part of U.S. food and ag sales to the island, according to the nonpartisan U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. The Cuban government “will have to decide … how much it’s willing to change,” writes Georgina Gustin, who has also written for FERN. She quotes Eric Holt-Gimenez, of Food First, as saying, “It’s not an organic paradise, but rather a very real struggle between these two models of production — just as it is everywhere else in the world. It’s just that the agro-ecological sector in Cuba is much more organized, and they have the political momentum. They saved the country from starvation.”
U.S. farm and agribusiness groups “are expressing support and optimism in new opportunities for collaboration with their Cuban counterparts,” said the USDA in compiling statements from 10 groups.