Director General issues call to support agriculture and rural areas in Haiti
San Jose, February 9, 2010, (IICA). Shortly before parting for Rome in the company of the Minister of Agriculture of Haiti, Joanas Gue, the Director General of IICA, Victor M. Villalobos, issued an urgent call to support the rural development of that nation because “a dollar invested in agriculture and the rural milieu in Haiti will produce a higher yield more rapidly than one invested in any other non-agricultural sector of the country.”
On Wednesday, February 10, Minister Gue will begin a trip to several
countries to present the special program prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR) of Haiti, with technical support from the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which has an estimated cost of US$700 million.
Minister Gue and Villalobos were scheduled to meet with the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States, Tom Vilsack, but the meeting had to be cancelled due to inclement weather in the nation’s capital.
The program’s portfolio of projects are intended to address the emergency created by the January 12 earthquake, support food production and integrate displaced populations, estimated to be some 1.5 million people, into rural areas.
Villalobos, who became Director General on January 15 of this year, has attached top priority to this emergency. He appointed a task force which is coordinating actions in support of Haiti from its headquarters in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and is in constant contact with other IICA Offices in Haiti, Washington, Canada and Costa Rica, site of IICA Headquarters, to coordinate actions aimed at supporting agriculture and Haitian small-scale formers.
“At present, all our efforts related to Haiti are focused on supporting the priorities set by Minister Gue and the MARNDR,” he underscored.
Haiti, a unique country
Agriculture and the rural milieu in Haiti have two characteristics that make the country unique, Villalobos said.
According to analyses conducted by IICA, in addition to the fact that 55% of the population lives in rural areas (the largest percentage of all the Americas), and that most of its soil is degraded, the yields for its principal agricultural products are the lowest in the entire region and have not increased since the early 1980s.
While in the United States and Chile the yield per hectare of maize (most important crop in Haiti) is more than 10 tons, in Haiti, it is less than 0.75 tons per hectare (average from 2003 – 2007).
In Villalobos’s judgment, inasmuch as agriculture and the rural milieu are a primary source of employment and income for the poorest sectors of the population, investments aimed at increasing yields and improving living conditions for this population will ensure that each dollar invested in agriculture and the rural milieu in Haiti will produce a higher yield than one invested in any other non-agricultural sector of the country.
Voices of Support
Villalobos said he was pleased to learn that a number of authoritative voices from different parts of the world have come out in support of rural development in Haiti and are drawing attention to the multiplier effect of investment in agriculture.
These voices include Alain de Janvry, co-author of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development. Professor Janvry recently stated that if Haiti is to be rebuilt, development agencies must begin to support subsistence agriculture and treat it as a vitally important production activity.
Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, has also said that in order to move from food aid to reconstruction, it is important to promote small-scale agriculture which might eventually even replace food assistance programs.
In recent days, international analyst Andres Oppenheimer echoed a comment made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic, Carlos Morales Troncoso, and recommended not committing, during the reconstruction of Haiti “the fatal error of focusing too much on bricks and tool little on trees” and here we would add… on food.
For its part, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is beginning to take action. It is developing a project that will channel US$2.5 million to the Department of Nipe, one of the poorest regions of Haiti, in pursuit of the same goal.
The objective of Minister Glue’s trip, said Villalobos, is to draw attention to the importance of investing in a sector that is strategic for the economy and the people of Haiti today and tomorrow.
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