WASHINGTON — Billy Bob Brown, a farmer in Panhandle, grows enthusiastic when he discusses his 2008 trip to Cuba, where he and three partners showed off Texas sausages, cakes and frozen desserts to Cuban tourism executives.

Brown, a member of the Texas Farm Bureau’s board of directors, has fond memories of the Cubans’ industriousness and kindness toward his group, and of their interest in importing American products.

“I’d look forward to going back as an opportunity to bring Texas agricultural goods back to Cuba,” said the 71-year-old Brown.

Sandy Point rice farmer Curt Mowery checks out his crop’s progress on his farm south of Houston. Mowery is among farmers in the state lobbying Congress.
Michael Stravato/The New York Times

Brown who grows wheat, corn, cotton and grain sorghum on his 3,000-acre farm, located about 30 miles east of Amarillo.

He could get that chance if a coalition of interests that includes the Texas Farm Bureau persuades Congress to lift some restrictions on exports to Cuba and to remove a travel ban that has lasted decades.

The House Agriculture Committee approved a bill to accomplish that objective last month. The full House could vote on the bill before the end of the summer.

Reframing the debate

To a large extent, the success of the pro-export lobby — which includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Farmers Union and state farm groups — will depend on its ability to reframe the debate about Cuba in terms of American national interest, rather than the stickier issues related to human rights concerns, opposition to communism or the government of Raul Castro.

When they do concern themselves with Cuba’s internal politics, groups favoring increased exports and travel argue that greater American influence would nurture any Cuban democratic aspirations.

The farm lobby’s efforts extend back at least a decade. In August 1999, for instance, another group of Texas farmers and representatives visited Havana for five days to explore selling its goods there.

At the time, the situation seemed favorable. President Bill Clinton had relaxed some restrictions on travel and it was relatively easy to arrange the trip through a congressional contact.

On their visit, members of the Texas delegation held a press conference, met with commodities officials, and had mojitos and dinner with Fidel Castro, then the president.

Southern farmers and the trade groups that represent them said that they think their proximity to Cuba and their history as one of its biggest food suppliers would make them natural exporters to the island.

“In this day and age, we’re looking for any kind of market that we can re-establish,” said Curt Mowery, a rice farmer in Sandy Point, located about 35 miles south of Houston, who went on the 1999 Texas Farm Bureau trip.

The Cubans, Mowery said, “like rice and they like American rice.”

But Florida’s role in George W. Bush’s presidential victory in 2000, and the vocal Cuban-Americans in the Miami area who supported the embargo, ensured that Bush would not ease the restrictions — even if some of the calls to do so were coming from Texas, his home state.

“For the eight years that President Bush was there, we basically put Cuba trade on the back burner simply because we knew we didn’t have a chance to get anything done,” said Stephen J. Pringle, legislative director at the Texas Farm Bureau who also took the 1999 trip.

Though President Barack Obama has criticized the Cuban government’s “clenched fist” toward its people, he acted in 2009 to lift limitations on Cuban-Americans’ travel to the country and on the amount of money that can be sent to relatives.

“If Congress takes the lead, then I think he would gladly follow,” said Anya Landau French, director of the U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation.

Opposing camp

But groups in favor of maintaining restrictions are more organized than ever, said Philip Peters, a Cuba analyst at the Lexington Institute, a research group.

Despite efforts by the Texas Farm Bureau to persuade the three Texans on the Agriculture Committee to vote to lift restrictions, only one — U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-San Antonio, voted to advance the bill.

Voting against the bill were Reps. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, and Mike Conaway, R-Odessa.

Opponents of the bill cite the continued human rights violations in the country. They also criticize farm-state legislators for linking a reversal of the travel ban — which they argue would enrich the Castro government while doing little to benefit ordinary Cubans — with more popular provisions lifting export restrictions.

Mowery is seen standing over Fidel Castro’s shoulder during a 1999 visit to Cuba.
Michael Stravato/The New York Times

Hard-line Cuban-American groups in Florida remain firmly against engaging the government.

Despite demographic shifts that may be lessening those groups’ numbers, they remain a powerful political force.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., has pledged to block a Senate version of the bill, though Sen. Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., and Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.D., said they have enough votes to overcome a filibuster.

Rice farmers in particular have a great deal at stake in the legislation. Even under the Bush administration, they were able to ship some rice to Cuba, but the amount depended on how strictly the Treasury Department interpreted financing restrictions.

In 2004, rice producers in the United States shipped $64 million worth of rice to Cuba.

After the administration more stringently applied rules requiring advance cash payment, rice exports dropped to $24 million in 2007.

In 2008, they were less than $7 million, and in 2009, rice farmers sent nothing.

Cuba gets much of its rice from Southeast Asia and farmers think the Cubans would be quick to switch to American suppliers to cut down on shipping time and freight costs.

“They could consume the entire rice crop of Texas and part of Louisiana,” Mowery said.

The USA Rice Federation estimates that if export restrictions were lifted, American farmers could eventually send 400,000 to 600,000 metric tons of rice to Cuba every year.

Far from being criticized at home for spending time with Castro, Pringle said he was praised when he returned to Texas.

“When you start talking to the average Texas citizen,” he said, “all of them would love to go to Cuba.”