Newsline: Minnesota Trade Deal Sends Milk Powder to Cuba
Cuban officials have agreed to purchase more than $8 million in agriculture products from Upper Midwest farmers, including 13,000 metric tons of special quality animal feed, 5,000 metric tons of powdered milk, 120 Holstein dairy heifers, 40 sheep and four bison from producers in Minnesota and other upper Midwestern states.
Cuban officials have agreed to purchase more than $8 million in agriculture products from Upper Midwest farmers, including 13,000 metric tons of special quality animal feed, 5,000 metric tons of powdered milk, 120 Holstein dairy heifers, 40 sheep and four bison from producers in Minnesota and other upper Midwestern states. The seeds of the deal were sewn by then-Gov. Jesse Ventura when he led a visit to Cuba last year.
"It's a huge new market for us," said Ralph Kaehler, a Minnesota farmer who has made several trips to Cuba. The package includes livestock from Kaehler's farm and a network of producers he knows from Minnesota and neighboring states. While the Ventura trip last year attracted a lot of media attention, subsequent visits to the island nation by farmers like Kaehler and representatives of the state's Department of Agriculture, yielded the latest agreement.