Spending Too Much Time On China & Cuba Sanction Changes

Spending Too Much Time On China & Cuba Sanction Changes. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

Cuba can be a very important market for northwest agriculture but the sanctions that have been in place for years have cut it off completely. Now the Obama Administration has announced significant regulatory changes to make it easier for Americans to travel to Cuba, expand access to U.S. financial institutions and the U.S. dollar from Cuba, and expand the ability for Cubans living in the U.S. to earn a salary. These changes are just one more step towards a normal relationship and open ag market with the island nation.

An economist with California State University - Fresno feels that too much attention is being placed on China as an export market. Joel Karlin says that China is no longer a viable market for U.S. exports.

KARLIN: China may actually be old hat. The fact is that China has made tremendous progress over the past 20-25 years for the vast majority of the middle class their caloric and protein intake is the same as citizens in OECD so they're as well fed as citizens of Germany or the United States or Japan so we have to look for new markets.

He suggests those market should be India and the African Continent.

KARLIN: They have a large cohort of young people that are going to eat more than their elders. They also have an increasing birth rate as opposed to China.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.