HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- Cuba could become a new land of
                  opportunity for business, according to a delegation of U.S. rice farmers and
                  Congressmen investigating business possibilities on the communist island.

                  Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas), who supports pending legislation to lift the
                  trade embargo on food and medicine sales to Cuba, is leading the delegation.

                  "With commodity prices as they are we are doing everything we can to
                  expand our markets," said Steve Pringle, legislative director of the
                  Texas Farm Bureau who accompanied the lawmaker on the nine-person trade
                  mission.

                  The U.S. Grains Council says Cuba could soon be a one million-ton a year
                  market for U.S. grain.

                  Just a few miles away, Rep. Danny Davis (D-Illinois), was learning about
                  Cuba's public health care system. "I am interested philosophically and
                  practically in normalizing relations with Cuba.

                  Lampson and Pringle are among more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers who
                  have visited Cuba since the Clinton administration announced measures to
                  increase personal contacts between Americans and Cubans while leaving the
                  embargo intact.

                  But more often than not, the visiting lawmakers have said they support at least
                  a partial lifting of the U.S. trade sanctions directed at Cuba since the early
                  1960s.

                  Two weeks ago, the Senate's Democratic leader and a fellow farm-state
                  senator spoke strongly for easing restrictions on food and drug sales to Cuba
                  after returning from a weekend visit that included a seven-hour meeting with
                  President Fidel Castro.

                  Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle of South Dakota and Sen. Byron
                  Dorgan (D-North Dakota), went to Cuba just nine days after the Senate voted
                  to allow essentially unrestricted food and drug sales to the island.

                  Efforts over the years by congressional opponents of the embargo normally
                  have been easily defeated. But the August 4 vote reflected that lawmakers
                  are more eager now to open markets for American farmers.

                  The Texas' delegation's five-day visit, which will include meetings with Cuban
                  farmers, officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture
                  and the chief of the U.S. Interest Section in Havana.

                  "We hope to make contacts and develop relationships with Cuban officials so
                  that Southeast Texas rice farmers can export their fine products into this
                  country in the future," Lampson said from Washington in announcing the trip.

                  "I do not believe that the United States should ever use sanctions on food and
                  medical sales as a foreign policy tool," Lampson said in the earlier
                  announcement.

                  Not all of Lampson's congressional colleagues agree.

                  Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Florida), who was born in Cuba, criticized
                  Daschle and Dorgan after their trip. In a news release he said they were
                  "feasting with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro while the Cuban people are
                  condemned to misery and oppression by the dictatorship."