Jeremy Alford and David Jacobs: State ag commissioner adopts international trade agenda

After nearly 2½ decades in elected office, including five consecutive terms as Louisiana’s agriculture and forestry commissioner, Mike Strain is hitting his stride politically and carving out new policy niches.
A veterinarian by trade (just like his wife), Strain has an eyebrow-raising $781,000 in his finance account.
That’s a high-water mark for his campaign, and a personal accomplishment for the commissioner.
Strain hasn’t moved numbers around like that since 2007, when he mounted a surprise ouster of late Ag Commissioner Bob Odom, a controversial figure who was among Louisiana’s most powerful in the 1980s and 1990s.
At the time, Odom was sitting on a campaign kitty that would have been worth $848,000 today, but Strain’s underdog bid overcame the financial disadvantage to trail Odom by just 10,700 votes in the primary.
A shrewd politician, Odom saw Strain’s work ethic and likability coming from a mile away — so Odom dropped out of the race before a runoff could hand him an actual defeat.
Odom was Louisiana’s longest-serving commissioner, with 28 years at the helm, whereas Strain is in his 17th year on the job. These days, Strain is commanding a rate of $500 per couple for his 15th annual Fall Ball at the Old State Capitol.
Held annually in October, the posh cocktail party has become a calendar staple for those in Louisiana’s political scene, with “premier sponsorships” available for $5,000.
Yet the politics, as controlled as they’ve become for Strain at age 64, are just a means to working on his passions. In fact, when he’s away from the office, where he oversees apiary permits for honey producers and year-round corn inspections, Strain spends his personal time scraping wax from bee frames on his family farm and tending to cornfields alongside his brother.
One day he’s wearing denim overalls. The next he’s in a suit making the argument that agriculture is the world’s greatest form of diplomacy.
While the latter may sound lofty, Strain has tested the theory in a series of trips to Cuba this year.
Back home in the Bayou State, Strain is also asking big, important questions about property rights, growing frustrated over federal funding opportunities and beginning to craft his agenda for the 2025 regular session.
Strain’s first visit to the Republic of Cuba was in 2016, when President Barack Obama, representing American interests, started thawing relations between the two Cold War adversaries. While political rancor remains, Strain saw — and still sees — an exciting new market for Louisiana products.
Strain finally made his return In February, when he was part of a small group that met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
A couple months later, Strain traveled again to the island country for a U.S.-Cuba agriculture conference. 
His timing was impeccable.
This past spring, the State Department categorized Cuba as a “cooperating” country in America’s war against terrorism.
That allowed Cuban businesses to access our banks and e-commerce — more baby steps toward normalizing relations. 
“Our exporters got some very good leads,” Strain told LaPolitics in an interview this week. “We’re there to sell them food.”
Strain said there are probably 400,000 individual farmers in Cuba now, and most agricultural land there is either privately owned or leased to private entities.
The United States, meanwhile, exports $300 million in goods to Cuba annually, mostly in rice and poultry, with roughly one-third to one-half originating from Louisiana. Over the next two years, Strain predicted U.S. exports will balloon to $1.6 billion.
Before the embargo, more than 60% of goods to and from Cuba came through the Port of New Orleans, he added, so Louisiana has the infrastructure.
long with food, Cuban officials are interested in seeds, fertilizer and farming expertise, creating new demands for American supplies that Louisiana can fulfill.
“If we are not there, other countries will be there,” Strain said. “It’s in our hemisphere. It’s our business.”
Strain has also been involved in conversations about foreign influence closer to home.
For example, Cuba is one of the “foreign adversaries” barred from owning agricultural land in Louisiana under HB 238, which Strain helped pass during this year’s regular session.
Other countries on the list are China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela. 
Strain said the new law was mainly aimed at Syngenta, a Chinese-owned Swiss firm that operates a manufacturing plant in St. Gabriel. Critics didn’t want the outfit acquiring more land here. 
“[Property] rights can be abridged, but it takes a very high mark under the Constitution,” Strain said.
“You have to look at the collective integrity and safety of the nation.”
As the global economy becomes more global, and Louisiana mainstays like the energy industry evolve, Strain worries about fertile agricultural land being taken out of production by solar farms.
He would prefer to see such developments replaces less-productive land, or for projects that adopt multi-use strategies.
“The world is consuming more food than it’s producing,” Strain said. “Every acre is precious.”
For more Louisiana political news, visit www. LaPolitics.com or follow Alford on Twitter @ LaPoliticsNow.