EMERSON VISITS CUBA ON BEHALF OF RICE FARMERS

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson leaves Tuesday for Cuba with the goal of breaking down barriers to rice exports from Southeast Missouri.

The Cape Girardeau Republican will meet with Cuba's agricultural attach, commerce officials and perhaps President Fidel Castro said Lloyd Smith, Emerson's chief of staff.

"Our rice growers have been very aggressive in opening new markets, and this presents a great opportunity," Smith said.

The trip is an outgrowth of Emerson's legislative attempts to lift the United States' food and medicine embargo on communist Cuba that has existed since 1962.

The policy is costing American farmers entry into a rice market estimated at nearly $800 million annually, Smith said.

Most of Cuba's 7.7 billion pounds of rice imports comes from Asia. Lower transportation costs would make American rice more attractive, and Missouri is well positioned to take advantage, Smith said. Rice mills in Marston, Mo., and Stuttgart, Ark., handle most of Southeast Missouri's rice crops, and they offer relatively close access to the Mississippi River and crop transportation to the Gulf of Mexico.

Prior to the embargo, Cuba had been the top importer of American rice.

Emerson's visit to Cuba is reciprocal following a trip to Southeast Missouri last September by the head of Cuba's diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C.

She is expected to return to the United States late Thursday or Friday, Smith said.