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[Andrew Gussert]

Food dependency is poverty trap for quake-hit Haiti

Pascal
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=pascal.fletcher
&>  Fletcher

LEOGANE, Haiti

Fri, Mar 26 2010

A child eats breakfast before the beginning of a class day at a provisional
school in the Cite-Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince March 18, 2010.
REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

A child eats breakfast before the beginning of a class day at a provisional
school in the Cite-Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince March 18, 2010. 

Credit: Reuters/Eduardo Munoz

 

LEOGANE, Haiti (Reuters) - Laborers at Haiti's only working sugar mill, the
Jean Leopold Dominique de Darbonne, chew on sugar cane stalks to sustain
themselves as they prepare the factory for another grinding season.

 

[Excerpt]

 

"WRONG-HEADED" PAST GLOBAL POLICY

 

On a visit to quake-stricken Haiti this week, former U.S. President Bill
Clinton recognized that the United States and international financial
institutions like the World Bank, albeit well-intentioned, had been wrong to
push developing states into opening their markets to cheap subsidized
imports.

 

During his presidency from 1993 to 2001, he said he had signed legislation
that had effectively increased the penetration of American rice into Haiti,
which decimated that country's own rice production. "I think it was a
mistake, I think it was part of a global trend that was wrong-headed,"
Clinton told reporters, adding he was now looking to boost Haitian farm
output by providing seeds and fertilizer through his own charitable
foundation.

 

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in collaboration with the
Haitian government, has prepared a $721 million investment blueprint for the
agricultural sector aimed at developing rural areas and production and
boosting distribution channels and agricultural services.

 

But achieving the food self-sufficiency goal will clearly take time and
political will, and also involve loosening the grip of past alliances
between powerful importing impresarios and the country's political rulers.

"So as to not import, you have to produce enough to feed everyone, and if
you don't produce enough, you have to buy it from somewhere else ... that's
life," said Volcin.

 

(Editing by Vicki
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=vicki.allen&>
Allen)

 

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