HAVANA: President Barack Obama’s recent initiative to normalize relations and re-establish trade with Cuba has opened old wounds beyond those connected to anti-communism and the Bay of Pigs.
Already battling exotic pests and diseases imported from outside Florida, growers fear more of the same from trade with Cuba.
Conventional wisdom among Florida citrus growers is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s border checkpoints failed to prevent the importation of the bacterial disease citrus greening, which arose here in 2005 and continues to threaten commercial citrus production in the state.
Add to that list citrus canker, another bacterial disease that re-entered Florida in the 1990s, and citrus black spot, a fungal disease that arrived in 2010. Other recently imported pests include laurel wilt, a fungal disease threatening Florida avocado production, and the giant African land snail, which attacks more than 500 plants and can carry organisms harmful to humans.
With that record, a lot of Florida growers have no faith in the USDA’s ability to screen out any pests riding along in Cuban agricultural imports.
“If you look at the kind of plant pest and diseases we’re fighting in the state, it may leave some people to believe (the USDA) is not doing a very good job,” said Mike Stuart, president of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, the trade group for most non-citrus crops in the state. “We’re a magnet for pests and disease. It’s a major concern.”
