Haiti At-A-Glance
More mountainous than Switzerland, Haiti has
a limited amount of cultivable land. According
to soil surveys by the United States
Department of Agriculture in the early 1980s,
11.3 percent of the land was highly suitable for
crops, while 31.7 percent was suitable with
some restrictions related to erosion,
topography, or conservation. The surveys
revealed that 2.3 percent was mediocre
because of poor drainage, but was acceptable
for rice cultivation, and 54.7 percent was
appropriate only for tree crops or pastures
because of severe erosion or steep slopes.
According to estimates of land use in 1978,
42.2 percent of land was under constant or
shifting cultivation, 19.2 percent was pasture
land, and 38.6 percent was not cultivated.
The use of purchased inputs, such as
fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, and
irrigation, was rare; farmers in Haiti employed
traditional agricultural practices more than did
farmers in any other part of the Western
Hemisphere. Although Haitian farmers used
increased amounts of chemical fertilizers in the
1970s and the 1980s, their use of an average
of only seven kilograms per hectare ranked
Haiti ahead of Bolivia, only, among Western
Hemisphere countries. Peasants applied
mostly natural fertilizers, such as manure,
mulch, and bat guano. Large landowners
consumed most of the country's small amounts
of chemical fertilizers, and they benefited from
subsidized fertilizers imported from the
Dominican Republic and mixed in
Port-au-Prince. Five importers controlled the
400,000 kilograms of pesticides that entered
the country each year; malaria carrying
mosquitoes and rodents in the rice fields were
the main targets of pesticide application. Most
rural cultivators used small hand tools, such
as hoes, machetes, digging sticks, and a local
machete-like tool called the serpette. There
was an average of one tractor per 1,700
hectares; most farmers considered such
machinery inappropriate for use on tiny plots
scattered along deeply graded hillsides. The
insecurity of land tenure further discouraged
the use of capital inputs.
The amount of irrigated crop land in the
1980s, estimated at between 70,000 and
110,00 hectares, was substantially less than
the 140,000 hectares of colonial times. Of the
nearly 130 irrigation systems in place, many
lacked adequate maintenance, were clogged
with silt, or provided irregular supplies to their
80,000 users. By the 1980s, the irrigation
network had been extended as far as was
possible.
The minimal amount of research on agriculture
and the limited number of extension officers
that MARNDR provided gave little assistance
to already low levels of farming technology.
Foreign organizations, such as the
Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in
Agriculture, carried out the most research.
Foreign organizations also provided more
technical assistance in agriculture than the
government.
Peasant attitudes and limited access to credit
also helped to explain the traditional nature of
farming. Most observers blamed agricultural
underdevelopment on peasants' individualistic
nature, their proclivity toward superstition, and
their unwillingness to innovate. Small farmers
also lacked access to credit. Informal credit
markets flourished, but credit was not always
available at planting time. When credit was
available, it was usually provided at usurious
rates. The country's major public financial
institutions provided loans to the agricultural
sector, but this lending benefited less than 10
percent of all farmers. Major credit sources
included the Agricultural Credit Bureau,
agriculture credit societies, credit unions,
cooperatives, and institutions created by
nongovernmental organizations.
(From: Federal Research Division of the
Library of Congress under the Country
Studies/Area Handbook Program sponsored
by the U.S. Department of Army)
Until the mid-1980s, Haiti was an agricultural society in which
people raised their own food as well as food for export. We
learned how that has changed as capitalist "free trade,"
"globalization," and "free market economy" have been forced
on the Haitian people.
One man we met there, Henri, told us that pigs once formed
the backbone of the peasant economy, especially in the
southern part of the country: "My parents raised and sold pigs.
When school time came, they could send the kids to school
using income from selling pigs. We had food to eat."
But starting in 1979, the U.S. and the U.S.-backed Duvalier
regime carried out a program of slaughtering all the pigs in
Haiti --in the name of eradicating swine flu. The U.S. sent
American pigs that were supposedly "better"--but the pigs from
the U.S. were not adapted to the conditions in Haiti and were
unable to survive. Henri's parents haven't raised pigs since and
have fallen deeper into poverty. They used to eat twice a day;
now they eat once a day. No one has work. He and other
family members in the U.S. and Canada send money to help
the folks back home--that's the only way they survive. His family
stretches the money as far as possible. They need 20 cups of
rice per week but try to make do on 12-15 cups--and they share
with neighbors who have nothing.
As barbers and customers listened and sometimes joined the
discussion, Henri explained that fish from the rivers used to be
a good source of food for the peasants. But in the mid-1970s,
agricultural chemicals imported from the U.S. poisoned the
water and killed the fish. In the late 1980s, economic
sabotage by the U.S. destroyed cement, bread, cooking oil,
and other industries in Haiti.
A state-owned Haitian-U.S. joint venture produced sugar for
export as well as domestic consumption and employed over
4,000 people. Henri said: "The Americans destroyed that. The
[Haitian] bourgeoisie started importing sugar--they said it
would be cheaper. We used to export sugar--now we were
importing it." Once the Haitian sugar industry was destroyed,
sugar became more expensive than before.
In the late 1990s, Haiti lost 25,000 acres of agricultural land
after the U.S. sold Haiti agricultural chemicals that made the
crops come up black, shriveled, and inedible and destroyed
the land for further agricultural use.
Today, much of the agricultural production in Haiti is tied to
U.S. corporations. People are forced to grow mangoes, coffee,
and other crops for export while their children go hungry.
Patrick, an agricultural expert from Haiti we spoke with,
explained, "People have land, but not the means for
production.... Farming could sustain a family of three, but give
them a chance to do it. They need water, seeds, fertilizer,
insecticide.... Instead, we get international food aid and this
destroys agriculture."
Patrick said that in 1990 President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
asked the U.S. to channel aid through Haiti's Ministry of
Agriculture instead of handing out food so the farming sector
could be rebuilt. Patrick thought this demand was a major
reason for the U.S.-backed 1991 coup that forced Aristide into
exile. He said food aid to Haiti following the 1994 U.S.
invasion--to reinstall Aristide as president--drove down prices,
which forced many more peasants off their land.
Patrick described a trip he took in Haiti in 1992: "I was driving
from Baie de Henne to M"le Saint-Nicolas. I had some bread
and avocados. Down the road there were people begging for
food. You couldn't just give them food from the car, you had
to get out and serve them -- because they were too weak to
come up to the car themselves." Starving people are often not
strong enough to get to the places where food is being given
out -- something he saw then and is sure is happening today.
Rice was once a major food crop in Haiti. Under pressure from
the U.S., Aristide lowered import tariffs on rice. Haiti was
flooded with rice from the U.S., which was cheaper because
growers receive government subsidies. This drove Haitian
farmers out of rice production and off the land. Haiti is now the
fifth largest importer of rice from the U.S.
A Haitian activist told us about a rice farmer from the central
department of Artibonite, the "breadbasket" that used to feed
the country. This farmer can't make a living by growing rice in
Haiti, so he has lived and worked in the U.S. for over 15 years.
But every year he goes back to Haiti, plants rice, returns to the
U.S. to work, goes back again for the harvest, then returns to
the U.S. again-- "to take a political stand." Last year this farmer
harvested 150 bushels of rice--but he has been unable to sell
the rice. "Haitian peasants don't produce any more," the
activist told us.
As a result of the destruction of Haitian agriculture over the
last 30+ years, Haiti imports much of its food. So when Haiti's
currency (the gourde) fell against the dollar, food prices stayed
more or less pegged to the dollar. One Haitian activist told us
bread that cost one gourde in 1994 now costs 15 to 20
gourdes. When we asked him what had happened to wages
and salaries during that same period, he answered, "What
wages? What salaries? There are no jobs any more!"
http://revcom.us/a/1239/haiti.htm
The
Destruction
of
Haiti's Agriculture
