The Société Haïtiano-Américane de Développement Agricole, also known as SHADA, was a joint venture between the United States of America and Haiti to expand wartime production of rubber in the Haitian countryside.
[1] During the outbreak of World War II, an axis blockade cut off American rubber supplies from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.
In 1939, the United States Department of Agriculture began a program to develop rubber production in the tropical Americas.
Farmers in Haiti's northern countryside were lured from food crop cultivation to meet increasing demand for rubber.
Dartigue was alarmed, and wrote to Fennell asking him to respect "the mentality and legitimate interests of the Haitian peasant and city-dwellers.
A US military report stated "The worst thing that can be said of SHADA is that they are doing [their operations] at considerable expense to the American taxpayer and in a manner that does not command the respect of the Haitian people".
Lescot feared SHADA's termination would add the burden of higher unemployment, as at its height over 90,000 people were employed by the company.