Louisiana rice farmers are hoping that progress made toward opening up the Cuban market to their product will continue under President-elect Donald Trump.
But as the International Business Times reports, Trump’s hardline stance of the Communist island nation has some of the Bayou State’s farmers concerned progress toward normalized U.S.-Cuban relations will be rolled back.
One of those farmers is Fred Zaunbrecher, who owns a rice farm in Rayne and began harvesting crawfish earlier this month, which helps adds revenue for the farm Zaunbrecher and his three brothers oversee.
The crawfish are a stable business, but the rice—the principal crop for Zaunbrecher—is not. A barrel goes for just $16 these days, down from about $25 four years ago, he says.
“Our livelihood right now is growing rice and selling it. And we plan on being in this business for a long time,” says the 59-year-old. “We’re optimistic that things are going to improve. If they don’t, we’re going to be out of business.”
Recently, there has been fresh cause for hope: Cuba. It’s a nearby, rice-loving country with whom trade had long been forbidden because of an embargo. But under President Barack Obama, the United States has worked to ease those restrictions. No state was more excited by that prospect than Louisiana.
Relations with Cuba, however, have been thrown into a limbo-state with the election of Trump, who’s threatened to walk back normalization efforts. In the deeply red state of Louisiana, the prospect of a Trump presidency largely breeds excitement, but his hostility toward Cuba could create another roadblock for the Louisiana rice industry hoping to rush into a potentially lucrative market.
