Agriculture in Haiti

In the 18th century, Haiti became a country of large plantations, especially of sugar cane, owned by Europeans and worked by hundreds of thousands of slaves.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, authoritarian government, corruption, foreign military interventions, environmental degradation, natural disasters, gang violence, internationally-imposed economic policies, and loss of foreign markets for products such as coffee served to make Haiti the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest countries in the world.

Agriculture in Haiti consists mostly of subsistence farmers eking out a living from small plots of land.

Although about 50 percent of Haiti's population was still rural in the 21st century, many farmers have abandoned the land and moved to the cities.

Prior to the voyages of Columbus beginning in 1492, a dense population of Taino people lived on the island of Hispaniola, 21st century Dominican Republic and Haiti.

They also grew sweet potato, maize, cotton, tobacco and a large number of tropical fruits and vegetables.

With the colonization of the island by the Spanish in the 16th century, most Taino died from epidemics of European diseases and exploitation.

Land and agricultural production was in the hands of European and mulatto planters owning about 8,000 plantations and half a million slaves.

[7] After Haiti gained independence in 1804 the government had the priority of maintaining a strong military to fend off French attempts to re-conquer the country.

The initial efforts of Haiti's government was to continue the plantation system with forced labor, albeit with regulations prohibiting some of the abuses of slavery.

[15] The number of farmers and the contribution of agriculture to Haiti's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been declining since the 1950s.

Palsson adds a third factor: the breakup of large plantations and the distribution of land to former slaves which increased transaction costs and resulted in a scarcity of capital, expertise, and labor.

Commodity prices were high; the Haitian currency was stable; tourism was flourishing and Haiti was one of the largest producers of coffee in the world.

[28][29] However, a substantial amount of coffee was smuggled across the border into the Dominican Republic (DR) and, thus, did not enter into the production and export statistics.

[35] They took up to 40 percent of the government's revenue some years and severely reduced its capacity to invest in infrastructure and agricultural development.

[36] The repressive governments of the Duvalier dynasty (1957-1986) and recurrent natural disasters added to the misery inflicting Haiti and impacting the economy.

To prevent the disease from spreading the Haitian government ordered all pigs located within 15 km (9.3 miles) from the border to be slaughtered without compensation to the farmers.

Still under threat from swine flu in 1981, a consortium of international financial organizations and the United States, Canada, and Mexico initiated a program with the Haitian government to slaughter all the pigs in Haiti to prevent the spread of the disease.

[45] The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) looked upon the slaughter as an "opportunity to improve the productivity of the Haitian swine industry"[46] AID introduced new breeds of disease-free pigs, but the pigs did not adapt well to Haiti and not until 2002 did pork production in Haiti reach pre-epidemic levels.

In 1986, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and U.S AID provided 153 million dollars in credits and loans to Haiti for economic reforms.

[51][52] Chicken is Haiti's second largest agricultural import from the United States, costing the country 79 million dollars in 2023.

U.S. firms found a ready market in Haiti for the cheaper and less desirable parts of chicken which they had trouble selling in the U.S. Haitian farmers were unable to compete.

[53][54] World leaders, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and UN Humanitarian Coordinator John Holmes, later apologized for the international program reducing tariffs on food imports into Haiti.

"[55] Haiti is a densely populated country with more than 11 million people crowded into an area of less than 28,000 km2 (11,000 sq mi).

The decline in the productivity in agriculture can be traced to deforestation, the resultant erosion, and population pressure on the land.

Natural disasters such as hurricanes, drought, and earthquakes have also played a role in the decline of agricultural productivity.

[58] Haiti has a tropical climate and the natural vegetation of all the island, except for a small area of semi-arid land, is forest.

Among causes of the deforestation were the demand by the populace for firewood and the production of charcoal, made by cutting down forests, as a much needed cash crop for farmers.

The downward spiral of Haitian agriculture was mostly due to political instability and gang violence in the countryside which caused many farms to be abandoned with their proprietors fleeing to the cities.