In Haiti, Episcopalians respond to food price crisis
Episcopal News Service. June 4, 2008 [060408-04]
Phina Borgeson, Correspondent for Episcopal Life Media
When rioting over food prices led to the dismissal of Haiti's Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis in April, global media attention turned to this country located on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Episcopalians, through partnerships built over time with the Diocese of Haiti, were poised to offer help.
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations lists Haiti as one of five Latin American countries with "severe localized food insecurity." Food prices in Haiti were inflating at a rate exceeding 20% in April according to the World Bank Group.
During the last two years, food prices around the globe have been rising steadily. The real price of rice rose to a 19-year high in March 2008, hitting hard those countries, like Haiti, which import most of their food.
About 80% of Haiti's 8.5 million people live on less than $2 per day. Hunger and malnutrition are widespread. While the average American household spends about 10% of its income on food, households in Haiti expend most of what they earn just to buy food.
Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) is working to mitigate and respond to the food crisis in Haiti. For the past several years, ERD has been partnering with the Diocese of Haiti to help reduce poverty, build a sustainable food system, and promote the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Working together with local communities, ERD supports programs in local agricultural development, fish farming, reforestation and micro-finance, and provides nutrition support for school-aged children. ERD also has expanded its vocational training program, and now trains both young business entrepreneurs through the Bishop Tharp Business and Technology Institute, and trains diocesan development agents to work directly with the communities.
According to Abagail Nelson, senior vice president of programs, ERD encourages the local purchasing and production of food wherever possible. "Farmers must be able to find markets for their local produce, or they will lose the incentive to produce, leading to greater dependency on imports and aid," says Nelson. "Episcopal Relief and Development works with the Diocese of Haiti to renew the soil, and enhance agricultural production. This increases people's access to food at the local levels."
Droughts and crop failure related to climate change in food-exporting countries, rising fuel costs for transporting food, and reduced global grain reserves have all contributed to escalating food prices globally. The conversion of land from growing food to growing agrofuel stock has also had an impact on the Caribbean region, impacting food availability and prices, although land has not yet been converted in Haiti itself.
The effect of severe weather on food production in Haiti has however been a concern these past few years. The vulnerability to annual flooding and hurricanes is compounded by widespread deforestation. Since many of the rural poor depend on extracting forest products to make any kind of living, according to Bishop Jean Zache Duracin of the Diocese of Haiti, it becomes critical to develop sources of income that steward the earth's resources rather than diminish them.
The Church in Haiti is organized to help reverse the situation. "We are very involved in the life of the people," says Duracin. "We have agents of development who travel around the diocese helping people and meeting with them, and assisting with health, environment and social justice issues, as well as with agriculture."
Duracin sees agriculture as the current priority for Haiti. "We are essentially an agricultural country, but it has been neglected for a long time."
Duracin notes that "usually we are critical of food coming from outside our borders," since it does have a negative effect on agriculture in the long term when small scale farmers must compete with food aid or with inexpensive staple crops from countries which subsidize their production, such as rice from the United States. But, Duracin adds, "We in Haiti must import food for a short time, while we develop a plan for getting back to our own agriculture."
Food for the Poor, an ecumenical organization serving 16 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, also continues to work with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti and Duracin, providing a range of assistance, as well as training and micro-enterprise development. This week a team from the Kentucky-based Diocese of Lexington is working with the town of Thomaseau, about 45 minutes outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince, where they have helped to build Lexington Village, consisting of 10 homes, a well and pit latrines.