Kansas Farmer - July 4. Kansas wheat growers and those across the nation support a bill that would ease agricultural trade and travel restriction rules with Cuba.

House Bill 4645 was introduced by Kansas Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, and Ag Committee Chairman Colin Peterson, D-Minn.

Cuba is the largest importer of wheat and wheat products in the Caribbean, with 11.4 million mouths to feed and no domestic wheat production.

"We are long overdue to make common-sense changes to our policy concerning Cuba, which has done nothing but hamstring agriculture's competitiveness in this neighboring market and hurt our agricultural economy," said NAWG President Jerry
McReynolds, a Kansas wheat producer who also testified to his experiences at a House Agriculture hearing held earlier this year.

"Especially at this time of high wheat stocks and low harvest prices in states like mine, this is a major competitiveness issue that deserves a solution. We thank our elected representatives for standing by us and passing this legislation."

As of Monday, 970 million bushels of wheat were held in grain elevators and on-farm storage, says Dalton Henry, government and membership affairs specialist with the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers.