Background

Haiti is a mountainous country with a tropical climate, suitable for growing coffee, sugarcane and fruit among other products. However, it is located in a hurricane zone and fault line. Its geological location makes infrastructure and development difficult to maintain in the long term.

In 2008, the small island was affected by four devastating hurricanes within one month of each other. In January 2010, Haiti was rocked by an earthquake that killed more than 200 000 people and completely shattered the country’s infrastructure. A massive international effort immediately ensued to provide disaster relief and rebuild the country. Progress is being made, but the recovery process is slow. The majority of the response effort has been focused on the urban aspect of the crisis; however, investing in rural and periurban agriculture will create jobs, increase food security, and stem the flow of displaced people back into Port-au-Prince. After six months, FAO had assisted over 360 000 people to produce their own food and sell the surplus in local markets. FAO continues to distribute high quality seeds, tools, fertilizers and water pumps and build the agriculture capacity of Haitians.

Before the earthquake, Haiti was already the poorest and least developed country in the western hemisphere. An estimated, 80 percent of the population lives under the poverty line, of which 54 percent in extreme poverty. Unemployment is widespread and two thirds of the workforce is employed in the agriculture sector. Most farmers are subsistence farmers and cannot produce enough food to sell in the markets. In 2008, domestically produced crops only covered 40 percent of national needs. FAO projects aim to increase the country’s capacity to produce food locally, utilizing the rural, urban and periurban lands to do so.

FAO’s emergency projects in Haiti

FAO leads the Agriculture Cluster in Haiti, working closely with the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development, UN agencies, NGOs and donors to implement projects that aim to improve food security and decrease dependence on food aid.

Activities include:

• providing the necessary inputs to urban and rural farmers to restore livelihoods affected by the earthquake;
• developing and repairing agriculture infrastructure in periurban and rural areas;
• providing input kits for tailored to the agricultural needs of the affected population, to enhance food production capacity;
• increasing access to organic nutritional food by distributing proper inputs and technical assistance to earthquake affected farmers to cultivate vegetable gardens and sell surplus in local markets;
• supplying inputs to earthquake affected herders to restore the production capacity of livestock, mainly poultry, and sell in local markets; and
• implementing a bi-national control system between Haiti and the Dominican Republic to monitor and report outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza to avert the spread of the disease and safeguard the health of the people.

Haiti also receives support through FAO’s global initiative in response to soaring food prices, with the objective of increasing access to food by rapidly boosting local food production.