By JENNIFER McKEE—Gazette State Bureau—

HELENA.—Cuba has satisfied a historic trade agreement to buy Montana-grown wheat, dried beans and peas worth $10 million.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who helped broker the deal, announced Tuesday that the Cuban government has bought $10.4 million worth of Montana crops, making good on an agreement reached last year between the communist island nation and Montana farmers.

"This is just the beginning," Baucus said in a telephone interview. "It shows that with a little bit of initiative and working together with Montana farmers and ranchers, we can make a difference."

Initially, the agreement called for the Cubans to buy $10 million in products in six months. But cutting through all the government red tape in both Cuba and the United States proved harder and more time-consuming than anticipated, Baucus said.

"The first time is always a bit difficult," he said. "You've got new
people, new regulations and new territory."

Baucus helped secure the deal while on a trade trip to Havana in September 2003 with Montana farmers and businessmen. Officials in Cuba said right away that they could buy $10 million in products, Baucus said, but making the whole agreement work took weekly telephone calls from Baucus to Cuba and Montana farmers.

Jim Stinehagen, owner of Yellowstone Bean Co. in Bridger, sold 8,000 metric tons of dried pinto beans to Cuba through the agreement - all shipped in bags emblazoned with "Yellowstone Bean Company: Montana Brand Premium Quality Pintos."

He had tried previously to sell to Cuba with no luck.

"When Senator Baucus got involved, we had our first sale within two weeks,"he said.

Baucus said the most important factor in clinching the deal was showing
enough interest in Cuba to go there and pitch Montana products.

Officials there had heard of Montana, but they didn't know all the products grown here.

All told, Cuban government importers bought beans, yellow and green dried peas, wheat used for making pasta and wheat used in breads.

Baucus said he is working to secure other deals.

Will Kissinger, deputy director of the Montana Department of Agriculture, said that while the Cuban deal is important, it represents only about 1 percent of the value of all Montana agricultural products.

"But if we can sustain that market and build on it, that would be to the
benefit of our producers," Kissinger said.

MAINE POTATO GROWERS PLAN TRIP TO CUBA

PRESQUE ISLE, Bangor Daily News.—Some Aroostook County potato growers may get involved, through a Canadian intermediary, in a fact-finding mission to Cuba later this winter. There is some interest in Cuba about acquiring Maine potato seed, according to Don Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board. Flannery said Wednesday that a Canadian dealing in exports to Cuba has made contacts in Aroostook County.
There was also a meeting last year of some growers with Cubans in Canada, Flannery said.
"He's [a Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, man] interested in having growers go with a group from Canada," Flannery said at the monthly meeting of the Maine Potato Board. "He knows the logistics of exporting to Cuba, and he would like some of us to go along."
The group, according to Flannery, could include Maine's commissioner of
agriculture and seed growers from Aroostook County.
The trade mission is expected to be going to Cuba on Dec. 11. He expected that four people from Maine would be included in the trade mission. The group will be traveling through Montreal to make the trip.
"We've got to look at new markets," Flannery said. "Seed from Canada and Europe is now sold in Cuba.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," he said.
He said seed from Holland is expensive to get to Cuba, and that could give Maine growers a niche.