Support for Haiti food production urgently needed: UN

ROME - A UN agency warned Thursday that urgent assistance must be given to food production on Haiti, given the high number of refugees from last week’s earthquake.

Haitian farmers must be given immediate support before the spring planting season begins in March, according to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Haiti’s consumption of cereals is estimated at around one million tonnes, of which about 63 percent are imported, FAO said.

“The priority is to supply them (Haiti’s farmers) with seeds, fertilisers, livestock feed and animal vaccines as well as agricultural tools,” FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said.

“It is urgent that we do this in the light of thousands of people fleeing the devastated capital Port-au-Prince for the rural areas and food prices rising,” he added.

The refugees will need to be provided with the necessary means to survive and be provided with an income generating activity, stemming from agriculture, Diouf said.

An estimated 53 percent of Haiti’s population live in rural areas and 47 percent are urban.

The spring planting season, that lasts until May, accounts for 60 percent of Haiti’s national agricultural production. With vital agricultural infrastructure such as storage facilities and irrigation canals damaged, Haitian farmers will need all the help they can get for the upcoming season, FAO said.

FAO currently has $49 million worth of programmes to increase food production in Haiti made possible by a variety of donors including the European Union, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Bank, France, Canada, Spain, Austria, Brazil and Belgium.

The programmes include the multiplication and distribution of suitable high quality seeds and seedlings that poor farmers can rely on as well as the distribution of fertilisers and tools.

Government and FAO programmes in Haiti last year helped boost national agricultural production by 15 percent and brought down the number of malnourished Haitians.

However, last week’s devastating earthquake in which tens of thousands of people are feared to have been killed threatens to reverse these achievements, according to FAO.

The UN agency noted how food prices are rising in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere because of food and fuel shortages, damage to the supply chain, warehouses and the city’s port.

FAO said it is deploying experts for an assessment of the impact on the agricultural sector and damage to infrastructure in the earthquake zone.