Fidel Castro in a "Goodness Grows in North Carolina" T-shirt?

Stranger things have happened. Such as embattled Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps joining Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura
and a man billed as the "World's Fastest Omelet Maker" in Cuba, for example.

Phipps, three other state agriculture officials and several companies with North Carolina ties will be headed to Havana late this month for
the first food and agribusiness exhibition since Castro took power.

The North Carolina delegation will face competition from more than 230 companies and representatives from 32 states, the District of
Columbia and Puerto Rico. But Phipps and company have already scored a coup: a private dinner Sept. 25 with Pedro Alvarez Borrego,
the head of Alimport, a government agency that determines what food the country imports.

International trade specialist Charles Green, who organized the trip for the agriculture officials, thinks that North Carolina has a good
chance to develop significant markets in Cuba for pork and poultry, and also sell the communist nation some other products, such as
apples and wood.

Certain kinds of lumber products, such as hardwood trim, are in demand to refurbish hotels and restaurants for Cuba's growing tourism
industry.

Green, who is fluent in Spanish, landed the dinner with Alvarez. He managed it after several overtures, including a courier-delivered letter
in Spanish.

Phipps and assistant commissioner Mike Blanton will stay in Havana for five nights; Green and his boss, Britt Cobb, will stay for nine.
According to figures supplied by the agriculture department, their trip will cost the state about $10,500, including $3,900 for its exhibition space.

For informal gifts to Cuban officials, the group may take a few "Goodness Grows In North Carolina" T-shirts and something that would be even
more alluring to the baseball-crazy Fidel --50 baseballs with "You're a hit with North Carolina" printed on them.

The state will have its own booth at the exhibition, where it will be joined by the N.C. Cotton Producers Association, Carolina Turkey and Allen
Canning, an Arkansas company with facilities in North Carolina.

PS International, Ltd., a Chapel Hill commodity trading company, and C.L. Henderson Produce Co., a Hendersonville apple grower, will have
their own booths. Also present will be --please, no Bay of Pigs jokes --Smithfield Foods, which is based in Virginia but is North Carolina's
largest hog producer.

After the dinner with Alvarez, he and the state officials will be joined by representatives of the various companies with North Carolina ties for
a coffee-and-dessert meeting.

The U.S. government eased the embargo on exporting food and agricultural products to Cuba in 2000, and the island nation has bought more
than $100 million worth from the United States since last November, a figure that could eventually rise to $1 billion a year.

North Carolina can grab a good slice of that business, Blanton said, if it's able to build contacts with key officials such as Alvarez.

"Cuba is a rapidly emerging market," he said. "Given that we're not very far away and we're the third-most diverse agricultural state, we
think we're in a really good position to take advantage of that."

Winding down

House Speaker Jim Black told reporters that legislative leaders were going to adjourn the protracted session "one way or another" in 10 days to two weeks."

Comparing the session to a basketball game, Black said, "We've got about a minute to go. We're moving down court and setting up for the last shot."

Lawmakers still don't have a budget in the third month of the new fiscal year -- the third overtime, to continue the sports analogy. But some people,
including Black's Senate counterpart, Senate leader Marc Basnight, expected additional time may be required.

"This is a very unpredictable place," said Basnight, a Manteo Democrat. "I would not guess that we can shut down in two weeks."