Haiti food insecurity

October 17, 2013

To give an idea of the kinds of issues faced by average Haitian farmers I copied this list of issues from 2012 (Haiti: Food Security and Nutrition Snapshot, as of April 2013).

  • 15% (1.52 million people) in 2012 faced severe food insecurity at a national level. 5.1% of children (81,600) under five faced acute malnutrition. [6.7 million people faced food insecurity in Haiti; 5.2 million faced moderate food insecurity; 1.5 million faced severe food insecurity).
  • May 2012: severe drought – $80 million in losses from agriculture.
  • July 2012:  food price increases
  • August 2012: Tropical storm Isaac – $70m in agricultural losses
  • October 2012: Hurricane Sandy – $104m in agricultural losses.
  • November 2012: flood in North. Department (state)
  • Late November 2012: Drought.

When you add to this the myriad political, social and historical problems we should not be surprised at the high rate of food insecurity. We should applaud the resilience of Haitian people and their ability to persevere in face of extreme hardships.

Tony Rinaudo is Natural Resources Advisor in the Food Security and Climate Change Team at World Vision Australia. Tony pioneered FMNR in Niger during the 1980s and his tecniques have been adopted by farmers all over the world. He is currently travelling to Haiti to introduce FMNR and help counteract devastating deforestation.

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