Over the past year or so, the Cuban market has started to open for U.S. travel and limited trade. The Midwest Truckers Assoc. recently conducted an infrastructure tour of the Island. Don Shaefer, the group’s executive V.P., says the Cuban road system is frozen in time.



Cuba has very good education and medical systems, given their financial limitations, but infrastructure and agriculture have a long way to go if Cuba hopes to grow the economy. They have almost no pesticides, fertilizer or mechanization in agriculture.



Shaefer says the Cuban economy needs capital to improve it’s infrastructure and food production systems, and the Cuban government will have to allow a lot more free market incentives if the nation hopes to move into the 21st century.