The American Soybean Association (ASA) welcomes the renewed focus from the Senate Agriculture Committee on expanding agricultural trade to Cuba as part of a hearing held earlier this week on Capitol Hill. The hearing gave several groups, including the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba (USACC) of which ASA is a member, an opportunity to speak about the challenges and potential opportunities for trade with Cuba.

“ASA applauds Chairman Roberts and Ranking Member Stabenow for holding such an important hearing, and for their attention to this issue,” said ASA First Vice President and Greenwood, Del., farmer Richard Wilkins. “Normalized and barrier-free trade with Cuba—an emerging market only 90 miles from our shores—would have a positive impact on soybean exports in the form of increased demand for pork, poultry, dairy and eggs, as well as vegetable oil for cooking.”

ASA is a charter member of the USACC, which formed in response to the need to reestablish Cuba as a market for U.S. food and agriculture exports. USACC provided two witnesses for today’s hearing panel to discuss Cuban market opportunities.

“We know that the soybean industry is losing out on valuable opportunities to market U.S. food and agriculture products in Cuba,” added Wilkins. “In the last year, Cuba imported about a half-million tons of soybeans and soybean products. A little less than half of that total came from the U.S. And those soybeans that have gone to Cuba in the last year have been exported with difficulty resulting from the red tape involved with the 1960s embargo. Lifting trade barriers and normalizing commercial trade would allow U.S. soybean producers to grow the Cuban export market and better compete with foreign suppliers who continue to increase their market share.”