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Vilsack Visits Minnesota To Talk About Export Opportunities

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will visit Minnesota to discuss efforts to expand trade.

Vilsack will meet Friday in St. Paul with officials from the Minnesota AgriGrowth Council and other business leaders to talk about increasing exports as a strategy for creating job opportunities in Minnesota.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the past six years have been the strongest in history for agricultural trade, with U.S. agricultural product exports totaling $772 billion since 2009.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and other lawmakers introduced legislation Thursday that would lift the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

The legislation already has been endorsed by the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba. It's led by Devry Boughner Vorwerk, a vice president at Minnesota-based Cargill, who says ending the embargo would boost opportunities for American agriculture.

(© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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