Background

Food prices in Haiti are sharply higher than they were two years ago, with the steepest rise from August 2007 until September 2008. Though prices of most food, local and imported, have since come down from extreme highs, they still put food out of reach for millions of Haitians.

Rice, for example, the vast majority of which is imported, was nearly double in price in December 2008 when compared with December 2007.

Some 80 percent of Haitians live below the poverty line. More than 60 percent of Haiti’s nearly 9 million people live in extreme poverty, unable to access sufficient food to eat.

Haiti each year is battered by the Caribbean’s seasonal hurricanes, which devastate the agricultural sector. Forests cover just two percent of Haiti’s land, leaving it without protection against extreme weather, and subject to soil erosion. Yet two-thirds of Haitians scrape their meagre earnings from agriculture.

Four major hurricanes swept the country in August and September 2008, destroying half of the crops that were growing at the time, killing more than 500 people as well as herds of livestock. The rice harvest is expected to be reduced by up to 30 percent, and the banana harvest by up to 20 percent.

In addition, transport remains difficult, putting further upward pressure on food prices as produce simply cannot get to market.

FAO Response

FAO initiated a series of emergency programmes in June 2008, and following the season’s hurricanes, and soon thereafter, funding levels more than doubled as Haiti’s situation became more dire. FAO ISFP-related projects include:

• a Technical Cooperation Programme project worth US$ 498 000, which provided for the emergency provision of Lima beans, cowpea and maize seed to about 70 000 vulnerable people. Though some crops were indeed destroyed during the hurricanes and flooding, delivery of inputs was not yet complete and re-commenced soon after. Farming tools, such as machetes and hoes, were also furnished;
• funds from the Spanish government were also put toward this emergency response, for a total of US$ 885 000;
• a programme worth more than US$ 2.5 million, supported by the UN-OCHA’s Central Emergency Response Fund. Tools, bean, sorgo and maize seeds, cassava and sweet potato cuttings were supplied to 63 000 vulnerable farming families (more than 250 000 people), as well as irrigation pumps in selected communities;
• in October of 2008, considering the gravity of Haiti’s situation, FAO began implementing a further response programme to help the poorest farmers through the end of 2009. The project, worth US$ 10.2 million funded by IFAD, will benefit 240 000 smallholder farmers and their families and will supply seeds for beans, vegetables and cereals, as well as sweet potato cuttings and banana plants. The aim is to reconstitute the nation’s seed stock and to build capacities of local farmers' associations.

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians will be assisted through this difficult period, for the next three planting seasons.