Let's talk Agriculture in Haiti
“If you don’t know my name, you don’t know your own”; James Baldwin. Now, I can’t say for certain that the Department of Agriculture has a picture of George Washington Carver on its wall; I used to roam the hall of that building at lunch recess for many years and I don’t remember seeing one there. As for the School of Agriculture, I attended a couple of parties there; but I failed the entrance exam but, I’m not so sure they know who he is there hero either. The previous sentence might put me in the company of those who have the least to say about agriculture in Haiti. But, that is not all. I was once a farm boy in the area known as “La Plaine”. The vast and lush sugar cane and banana plantations in that area contributed handsomely in getting me where I am today. I can honestly say that there is not one of the cash crops raised in that area that I did not plant myself or at the least watch others plant. Now that we have established the fact that I am at the least bit familiar with the Haitian farmer, I will attempt to start this conversation as a mere observer.
For many of us living abroad, the solution is rather too simplistic; make those who left the farms to come to Port-au-Prince go back to their farms. Wawa said it best in his song, “homo homini lupus” and I’ll paraphrase: “Theirs will go on to college; they’ll become doctors and engineers. While ours seat around and throw stones at the mangoes.” We diminish ourselves every time we degrade, humiliate, and exploit our people. Condemning people to a life of servitude and exploitation in the name of the country is selfish and cruel. If we are going to ask them to go back to the same farms that sucked their mothers’ and fathers’ blood until they had no more, I’m sure most of them would rather die in P-au-P. Let us consider first a farm that attracts them for the benefits and opportunities that it provides rather than the one that repulses them at the sheer site of the dirt flooring and straw hatch houses that they watched their parents die in with nothing to show for it. As Haitian, I value education and so do you. It’s been said that it is our ticket out of poverty and I for one believe in it. Most farmers believe in it too. They endure the hard labor so their kids would not have to. In turn, those kids cannot wait to leave the farm for the city, for the so called better opportunity.
How did Haiti managed to stay afloat in this business for so many years? Anyone who knows the country would agree that it was not without perils. The farm life in Haiti is torturous and miserable, hard and antiquated. The process has not seen any modernization since slavery days. Very few attempts at the use of fertilizer or motorized tractor have been initiated unsuccessfully. Water management is at best rudimentary. The land has only been producing what a very hard working farmer can get out of it. Once he does, he’s faced with stiffed competition from foreign imports from the US and elsewhere. Sugar cane as imperishable crop was good. But, HASCO sets up the price at which it buys it from the poor farmer until it realized that it was more profitable to import the sugar from the Dominican Republic. The rich exporter sets up the price at which he buys too; from mangoes to coffee. But today’s haitian farmer wants and deserves better.
Let’s talk about cooperative farming with modern tools, where the association has bargaining power. Let’s have the US remove its objection or veto to the money pledged, as far back as 1998, to help Haiti with clean water and irrigation. Let’s have a percentage of the borrowed monies in tractors and other agricultural tools. Let create a new generation of Agronomists. Let’s talk about dairy again; once a product of La Plaine and Leogane; today’s Haiti has no milk. Let’s repeal that act that opens Haiti’s market so wide that even our politicians and educators found it more profitable to sale imported rice and other goods than serve the country. Then, let’s talk about decentralization; giving more autonomy to the large Provinces in matter of taxes and regulation, education and health. Let’s make sure that we rebuild Haiti and not the same “Republic of Port-au-Prince” where all power and opportunity are concentrated.
Haiti has always been considered an agricultural based country; in fact, she was in not so distant past; as the evidence suggested the 2nd largest producer of sugar. The country exported large quantities of coffee and cacao for many years and its rice production was in the up-swing with a better management of the river of Artibonite. There were always enough plantains, bananas, and other roots vegetables to sustain the population appetite. These are the undisputable facts that propel everyone to propose that the government forces those who have left the farm since, to go back and start planting again. Easier said than done! In fact, the Prime Minister of Haiti just declared that he can’t even force people to relocate from the devastated areas of Port-au-Prince. I, for one, question his leadership in that issue. But, I would concede that the task, although doable, is not easy. They will need a very persuasive argument. George Washington Carver believed that his research in agriculture would help the newly freed slave acquire wealth and sustain himself, Toussaint Louverture believed that he needed to keep the laborers in the productive farms of Saint Domingue in order to consolidate its independence, and today’s Haiti needs a more comprehensive farming.
For many of us living abroad, the solution is rather too simplistic; make those who left the farms to come to Port-au-Prince go back to their farms. Wawa said it best in his song, “homo homini lupus” and I’ll paraphrase: “Theirs will go on to college; they’ll become doctors and engineers. While ours seat around and throw stones at the mangoes.” We diminish ourselves every time we degrade, humiliate, and exploit our people. Condemning people to a life of servitude and exploitation in the name of the country is selfish and cruel. If we are going to ask them to go back to the same farms that sucked their mothers’ and fathers’ blood until they had no more, I’m sure most of them would rather die in P-au-P. Let us consider first a farm that attracts them for the benefits and opportunities that it provides rather than the one that repulses them at the sheer site of the dirt flooring and straw hatch houses that they watched their parents die in with nothing to show for it. As Haitian, I value education and so do you. It’s been said that it is our ticket out of poverty and I for one believe in it. Most farmers believe in it too. They endure the hard labor so their kids would not have to. In turn, those kids cannot wait to leave the farm for the city, for the so called better opportunity.
How did Haiti managed to stay afloat in this business for so many years? Anyone who knows the country would agree that it was not without perils. The farm life in Haiti is torturous and miserable, hard and antiquated. The process has not seen any modernization since slavery days. Very few attempts at the use of fertilizer or motorized tractor have been initiated unsuccessfully. Water management is at best rudimentary. The land has only been producing what a very hard working farmer can get out of it. Once he does, he’s faced with stiffed competition from foreign imports from the US and elsewhere. Sugar cane as imperishable crop was good. But, HASCO sets up the price at which it buys it from the poor farmer until it realized that it was more profitable to import the sugar from the Dominican Republic. The rich exporter sets up the price at which he buys too; from mangoes to coffee. But today’s haitian farmer wants and deserves better.
Let’s talk about cooperative farming with modern tools, where the association has bargaining power. Let’s have the US remove its objection or veto to the money pledged, as far back as 1998, to help Haiti with clean water and irrigation. Let’s have a percentage of the borrowed monies in tractors and other agricultural tools. Let create a new generation of Agronomists. Let’s talk about dairy again; once a product of La Plaine and Leogane; today’s Haiti has no milk. Let’s repeal that act that opens Haiti’s market so wide that even our politicians and educators found it more profitable to sale imported rice and other goods than serve the country. Then, let’s talk about decentralization; giving more autonomy to the large Provinces in matter of taxes and regulation, education and health. Let’s make sure that we rebuild Haiti and not the same “Republic of Port-au-Prince” where all power and opportunity are concentrated.
Haiti has always been considered an agricultural based country; in fact, she was in not so distant past; as the evidence suggested the 2nd largest producer of sugar. The country exported large quantities of coffee and cacao for many years and its rice production was in the up-swing with a better management of the river of Artibonite. There were always enough plantains, bananas, and other roots vegetables to sustain the population appetite. These are the undisputable facts that propel everyone to propose that the government forces those who have left the farm since, to go back and start planting again. Easier said than done! In fact, the Prime Minister of Haiti just declared that he can’t even force people to relocate from the devastated areas of Port-au-Prince. I, for one, question his leadership in that issue. But, I would concede that the task, although doable, is not easy. They will need a very persuasive argument. George Washington Carver believed that his research in agriculture would help the newly freed slave acquire wealth and sustain himself, Toussaint Louverture believed that he needed to keep the laborers in the productive farms of Saint Domingue in order to consolidate its independence, and today’s Haiti needs a more comprehensive farming.
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