Farmers hope for windfall

The rust-red fields stretched for miles in the Cuban sun, garlic shoots and beetroot leaves waving gently in the spring breeze.

Pink piglets nosed for scraps under the admiring gaze of then-US president Ronald Reagan's first secretary of agriculture and about a dozen other US farmers and trade officials who may represent Cuba's best hope for ending the half-century-old trade embargo it blames for most of its economic troubles.

On Wednesday, the delegation of about 90 representatives of US agriculture wrapped up three days of meetings with Cuban officials and farmers as part of a lobbying campaign to eliminate the embargo.