Homemade soup was on the menu after Thanksgiving weekend, and we were desperate for some carrots to add to it. So, at the Guelph Costco, we snagged the first ones we found, not far from Martin’s apples, assuming they were Ontario-grown. After all, these carrots were clean, well packaged and fresh looking.

Later, though, reading the small print, it turns out they were from Guatemala.

And while I’m all for supporting farmers regardless of where they till their soil, naturally, my first allegiance is to locally produced fruit and vegetables. I assume Costco also feels some duty to support and present local products, if for no reason other than consumer demand. But I also recognize availability and cost (true to the company’s name) factor in to consumer response.

The experience, however small, added another dimension to my thoughts about Cuba, a relatively nearby country that’s also capable of producing appreciable fruit and vegetables.

I’m tempted to say Cuba’s on the verge of being a meaningful source of produce, given its proximity to the U.S. and Canada, and the liberalized trade talks between it and the U.S. These talks might signal the end of what Cubans call the American trade blockade.

But having travelled to Cuba earlier this fall on an agricultural press tour, it’s clear Cuba still has a ways to go before it starts flexing its muscles in our produce aisles.

Not that farmers there don’t know how to grow fruit and vegetables. They do, in part, because their economy has been so wracked by the blockade and then later, the fall of the Soviet Union, from which they had received so much support.  Livestock is expensive to raise and maintain, compared to fruit and vegetables. And given Cuba’s favourable climate, the produce industry, however primitive, has developed.

There has also been little money for inputs. So, many farmers did without. And in doing so, they backed into Cuba’s version of organic production. Many wear it as a badge now, and you’ll hear dreamy tales of Cuba being an organic agriculture mecca.

But from what I could tell, it’s not by choice. Many farmers crave modern technology, and the main reason they don’t have it is because they can’t afford it. Our group, representing some of the biggest U.S.  farm publications, visiting Cuba for the first time in 60 years, were repeatedly implored to write stories that underlined how much the country wanted the blockade to end so farmers could get access to credit, technology and the U.S. market.

From my perch as president of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, I was intrigued about the status of freedom of the press in Cuba, and whether it too was becoming more liberalized.

Democratic societies and free-press organizations roundly agree that Cubans do not have freedom of the press. No independent newspapers have operated since Fidel Castro took control of the country. Reporters Without Borders ranks Cuba 171st out of 180 countries for press freedom. It doesn’t get much worse.

Yet it’s well established in the free world that an unbridled agricultural press is helpful to farmers, mobilizing and sharing production knowledge, opinions and news.

At Havana’s agricultural university, the Universidad Agraria de la Habana, I was told farmers mainly get information from other farmers, and from regional hubs throughout the country. That information includes bits and pieces from the university’s technical journal, Ciencoas Technicas Agropecuarias, which is written more for other scientists than for farmers.

To me, this is limiting. Cuban farmers would certainly benefit from greater accessibility to information, let alone technology.

Some government and agriculture officials say agriculture, like the press, should remain aligned with what they call the socialistic state. And that’s fine. But a freer flow of information could still help improve production, regardless of the state’s ideology.

And based on the agriculture I saw there on an organic farm – hand-plowing with cattle, primitive mechanization and intensive manual labour -- farmers need help, if indeed Cuban carrots are ever going to join those from Guatemala on Costco shelves.