By Forrest Laws
Delta Farm Press
In August of 2005, a group of U.S. rice producers and millers traveled to Havana, Cuba, to visit with officials from ALIMPORT, the Cuban Government’s primary grain-buying agency, about purchases of U.S. rice.
After passage of the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, Cuba had begun buying U.S. rice for the first time since the U.S. imposed a trade embargo on the island after Fidel Castro rose to power in 1960.