New York Seeks To Crack Cuba’s Food Market
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
HAVANA — New York’s commissioner of agriculture, Patrick Hooker, came to Cuba yesterday armed with steaks, wine, cheesecake, and a feast of other products from his state, as one of America’s top food producers looks to crack the communist-run island’s food-import market.
But in case all that food doesn’t whet Cuba’s appetite, New York is betting baseball might.
Mr. Hooker also brought an engraved wooden Rawlings Sporting Goods Co. bat and presented it to the chairman of Cuba’s food import company, Alimport, Pedro Alvarez.
“I think it’s only fitting that you see here and now one of the great forest products that we make,” Mr. Hooker told Mr. Alvarez at a news conference, adding that the pair spent part of the afternoon chatting about the New York Yankees.
Baseball-crazy Cuba is also a major international food importer.
The island spent about $300 million to import American food and farm products through March and by the end of this year expects to buy a bit more than the $600 million in American agricultural products it purchased in 2007, Mr. Alvarez said. Those tallies include expenditures for shipping, banking and transportation costs. Because of soaring international food and petroleum prices, Cuba expects to spend $1.9 billion on all food imports in 2008 — about 20% more than last year, Mr. Alvarez said.
Washington’s nearly 50-year-old trade embargo prevents American tourists from visiting Cuba and prohibits nearly all trade between both countries. But since 2000, the Cuban government has been allowed to buy American food and agricultural products with direct cash payments.
Cuba at first balked at the measure, but reversed course after a hurricane ravaged parts of the island in November 2001. Since, it has spent more than $3 billion on American farm products and related transaction expenses, Mr. Alvarez said.
Cuba buys roughly 1,600 American agricultural products from 35 states. But almost none are from New York.
Leading New York’s first official trade mission to Cuba, Mr. Hooker arrived in Havana with 20 officials, including growers and experts specializing in dairy products, vegetables, apples, wine, and forestry goods.
“Are we a bit late? Perhaps we are,” Mr. Hooker said of New York taking nearly eight years to organize its an official trade mission after direct American agricultural exports to Cuba became legal.
