National Chicken Council President Mike Brown was part of a delegation of poultry, egg, and U.S. soybean industries that visited Cuba this week on a fact-finding trade mission. Other delegates included Jim Sumner, president of the U.S.A Poultry and Egg Export Council; Joel Brandenberger, president of the National Turkey Federation, and Anne Alonzo, president and CEO of the American Egg Board.
The delegation met with poultry, egg, and soybean representative to learn more about Cuba’s food distribution system and to discuss biosecurity, food safety, and nutrition issues. The mission’s focus was to access the potential for greater U.S. agricultural trade as relations between the United States and Cuba continue to develop. Since limited agriculture trade with Cuba was first allowed in 2000, it has become the fourth-leading export destination for U.S. poultry by volume.
“NCC and our members support the concept of free and fair trade,” said NCC President Mike Brown. “Seeing our products here in Cuba gives me great hope towards future development. Because of our proximity, we would welcome the opportunity to provide more of our safe, wholesome and high quality poultry to the Cuban people.”
This week’s mission represented the first delegation to Cuba backed by and funded by the soybean check-off program. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is allowing 22 industry-funded agricultural research and promotion programs to visit Cuba to conduct trade research.
