Why are Haitians eating dirt?

[Hannah Bell]

Over the last month there have been several news reports on Haiti, according to which high grain prices have led to poor Haitians subsisting on "dirt cookies," food riots, and finally the resignation of the government.

But why is Haiti starving?

We're told it's "overpopulation," but its population density (307/km2) is less than Japan's 339/km2, & Japan is self-sufficient in rice, while Haiti is an importer. And in fact, 28% of Haiti's land is arable - a higher percent than Japan, or the US - more than double. It also has a year-round growing season. Yet Haiti is the poorest, most hungry country in the western hemisphere, on the lowest end of all health measures.

Trying to figure out what's going on, I came across discussions of Haiti's former food self-sufficiency:

"As recently as the mid-1980s, Haiti was self-sufficient in production of rice, the staple food. But trade agreements that opened Haiti’s markets to imported rice—mainly from the US—have progressively weakened the position of small-scale Haitian farmers.

In 1995, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Haiti was forced to reduce its tariffs on US-grown rice from 35 percent to 3 percent, far below the regional Caribbean average of 25 percent. At the same time US producers can afford to export rice at prices below their real costs of production, making it almost impossible for small farmers in countries like Haiti to compete without some form of protection. From 1994 to 1995, the amount of rice Haiti imported from the US more than doubled.

Though the influx of cheap US rice helped lower food prices in the short term, it decimated Haiti’s agricultural sector. Most of the money spent on imported US rice has not stayed in Haiti, but instead gone to US rice growers—draining the Haitian economy.

Haiti has closely followed the prescriptions of the international finance community for over a decade, earning the ranking of “least trade restrictive” country in the Caribbean by the IMF. Yet Haiti remains the poorest country with the hungriest population in the western hemisphere."

http://www.pih.org/inforesources/news/haiti_food_12_06.html

Haiti would seem to have a comparative advantage in agriculture, & plenty of unemployed people to work the land - but its people are living in city slums & eating dirt. Something's wrong with this picture.

[babylonsister]

1. Lots of people are starving. It's the 'new world order', or something.

Gas prices are interfering from what I hear. That doesn't explain the food pantries going empty in Manhattan. Are the restaurants closing? Heh, I'll bet some are, come to think of it.

[Breeze54]

15. Huh!? Dirt pancakes?? That isn't FOOD!!!!!

And these fucking trade agreements are despicable!! :grr:

And why isn't the US shipping in food? :grr:

[babylonsister]

19. No shit. I've been posting links for weeks, and NO ONE gives a shit.

Despicable? Absolutely.

[Billy Burnett]

22. Post your threads in the Latin America forum. Lots there on Haiti.

Home » Discuss » State & Country Forums » Latin America
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=405

[Hannah Bell]

20. They do. US subsidized food is part of the problem. Better to

subsidize Haitian agriculture - not adm & cargill.

[Breeze54]

26. If they are, they wouldn't be eating fucking dirt!

Air drops are in order....

[Quantess]

2. I don't understand.

Why don't they grow their own rice? I understand that imported rice is a problem for local farmers, but why would they stop growing it? This doesn't make sense to me.

[sandnsea]

4. The same reason farmers here stop growing things

They can't grow it cheap enough to be profitable.

[hack89]

52. US farm income is at record levels

These are good times for US farmers.

http://www.theindependent.com/stories/12162007/new_biofuels16.shtml

[Warpy]

7. Rice farmers were driven out of business because imported rice

was cheaper. The land they had once grown rice on was snapped up by the ruling elite and planted with cash crops for export.

You might as well ask why American workers don't just start making refrigerators and shoes. They don't because cheaper imports destroyed the ability of domestic factories to compete.

They're eating dirt so that their stomachs will stop hurting for a few minutes. They're eating dirt because the ruling classes declared them superfluous. They're eating dirt because the land they once owned and farmed is now being used to grow money for the already rich.

[Hannah Bell]

8. Because the imported (US-taxpayer-subsidized) rice sells for less, so the local farmer's

income goes down. Without income, he can't

1)pay taxes on his land or make payments on it,
2) buy inputs for the next year's crop,
3) pay his labor, if he has to hire any,
4)buy the other things he needs to live.

So he joins the other 80% of the population in the slums, doing occasional labor, doing crime, trying to survive & eating dirt. Transnational corps & oligarchs buy the idle land for estates, resources or cheap-labor factories.

[Matariki]

9. It's explained in the article

In the 90's, rice imported from the US was cheaper than growing it there for reasons explained in the article. Now combinations of rising worldwide grain prices, the Haitian gourde losing value, and IMF debt have raised prices so high that some people are reduced to eating dirt. Literally. Also I've heard that the hurricanes last year did serious crop damage.

Getting agriculture back to a level of self sufficiency doesn't happen overnight. But I have read of efforts within Haiti to move toward that goal.

There was just a bill in congress this week to cancel Haiti's debt. I don't know how it turned out. Here's a link:
http://www.jubileeusa.org/jubilee-act.html

[babylonsister]

17. The House passed it, FWIW, which may be not much...

http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0183

The Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation

On April 16th, the House passed the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation of 2008, HR 2634. The bill directs the Bush Administration to begin negotiations for an agreement within the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the Paris Club of bilateral creditors to allow up to 24 additional low-income countries to qualify for international debt relief.

The bill builds on previous successful efforts in recent years to provide debt relief for the world’s poorest countries as an essential component in the overall effort to help alleviate the severe poverty that exists in many parts of the world. Debt relief programs have had a proven record of success. For example, Uganda used its $57.9 million in savings from debt relief in 2006 to invest in energy infrastructure, primary education, malaria control, health care, and water infrastructure.

Following is an overview of some of the key provisions of the bill:

The bill builds on the successful international debt relief activities that began in 1996 – with 30 poor countries having receiving debt relief in the last 12 years. This bill builds on the immensely successful debt relief efforts that began more than a decade ago to provide debt relief for the world’s poorest countries as an essential ingredient in the overall effort to reduce global poverty. These efforts require the country receiving the debt relief to use the savings for poverty reduction efforts. These efforts were first launched in 1996, when the World Bank and IMF launched the first “Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC).” There have been follow-on efforts since then. Since 1996, more than 30 poor countries have received some form of debt relief, totaling approximately $80 billion.

The bill calls for a new agreement that would allow up to 24 additional poor countries to qualify for debt relief. The bill instructs the Treasury Department to commence multilateral negotiations for an agreement within the international financial institutions (such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) and the Paris Club of bilateral creditors to allow up to 24 additional poor countries to qualify for debt relief.

The bill sets a series of criteria that a country would have to meet in order to qualify for debt relief. To be eligible for debt relief under the bill, these low-income nations would have to meet conditions outlined in the bill, including:

* Fostering transparent and participatory policies to achieve poverty reduction through economic growth;
* Ensuring sound budget procedures, good governance, and effective anti-corruption measures; and
* Producing and disclosing to the public an annual report disclosing how the savings from debt cancellation will be used.


The bill also lists activities that would disqualify a country from debt relief. Under the bill, countries would be excluded from receiving the debt cancellation if they:

* Have an “excessive” level of military expenditures;
* Have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism;
* Fail to cooperate on international narcotics control matters; or
* Engage in a consistent pattern of gross human rights violations.

The bill also includes steps for ensuring countries benefiting from debt cancellation don’t return to square one. This legislation calls for measures to help ensure that nations that benefit from debt cancellation do not acquire new debt and thus return to square one, including prioritizing grants over lending in future development assistance and adoption of a legal framework to prevent some creditors from profiting from debt relief by providing high-cost loans to countries that are newly debt-free.

The bill only provides authorization for the Treasury Department to commence negotiations for new debt relief; and therefore has no costs. :eyes: This legislation only provides authorization for the Treasury Department to commence efforts to negotiate a multilateral agreement on debt cancellation, but it does not authorize the implementation of any agreement. Since Congress would have to approve any future agreement that might be reached to cancel bilateral and multilateral debts, CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 2634, by itself, would have no budgetary impact.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

Costs more to grow it than it does to buy it,

except they don't have the money to grow OR buy it now.

[sandnsea]

3. Same reason the Irish starved in 1847

The entire world wasn't out of food then either. The lords were selling grain and livestock out of Ireland, while aid was being sent in. We've made so much progress. Woohoo!

[Breeze54]

16. No it isn't the same reason!! Ireland had a potato blight! POISON in the fields and the

English didn't give a rats ass the millions were starving to death! Not the same! There was no NAFTA in 1847!

[Hannah Bell]

24. Ireland exported food & ag products to England throughout

the potato famine. If those products had stayed home, or if the peasantry had received even 1/4 of the income from them, there would have been no famine.

The problem is basically the same: the dominance of the interests of the few over those of the many. as always.

[Breeze54]

27. Only some parts.... most starved to death or left the country. n/t

The Great Famine... look it up.

[Hannah Bell]

33. Most of the land in Ireland at the time was held by a small

landlord class, part of it British. They farmed for export, including wool for British textile production. The Irish peasantry had either smallholdings or were tenants. They raised potatoes for personal consumption, not for the market - because potatoes produced more than other crops, so that was how they could get the most calories on a small piece of land. It was something like 80% of their diet. These are the people who starved - the peasants.

The large estates exported food & ag produce all during the famine. It's a fact. And the British talked of Irish overpopulation - just as folks on DU now.


"Throughout the Potato Famine, from 1845 to 1847, more than one
million people died of starvation or emigrated....Despite the famine conditions, taxes, rents, and food exports were collected in excess of £6 million and sent to British landlords.(3)

Although the blight infected crops in the United States, Southern Canada and Western Europe in the years of 1845-1846, the overpopulated
subsistence farmers of Ireland were forced to export corn, wheat,
barley, and oats to Britain, which left the potato as the sole
dietary staple for the people and their animals.(6) While other
regions were able to turn to alternative food sources, the Irish
were dependent on the potato and the results of the blight were
disastrous.(7)"

http://www.american.edu/ted/potato.htm

[JerseygirlCT]

47. Yes. It was the dependence on a sole crop

and then the blight, that did them in.

Meanwhile, as you say, the big farms continued to be used for a variety of crops and animal products, to be sold cheaply to England.

[elehhhhna]

54. Hannah you know your facts. I got your back, here.

[sandnsea]

28. There was ownership by the wealthy

that created similar misuse of the land, which always makes a disease more likely. My point though, is that nobody need starve in any famine. There is ALWAYS enough food. There just isn't enough will to get the food to the starving people.

And there was global trade in 1847. They exploited poor labor then, just like they're doing now.

[Breeze54]

29. There was no food for the potato farmers. Millions starved. n/t

[sandnsea]

31. It wasn't that simple

Just like it isn't so simple in Haiti to just say, there's no food. The economic structure contributes to both of them.

"Most vulnerable were the poorer, densely populated, Irish-speaking areas in the south and west. Two thirds of the peasant farmers of Connacht were cottiers, surviving on less than 2.3 hectares each. Throughout the island, 130,000 families were trying to survive on less than half a hectare. This massive class of the poor grew grain to pay their rent. For as long as they could sell their grain, they could pay the landlord and avoid eviction. This grain was exported to feed the working class of England, whose staple diet was bread."

http://www.greenleft.org.au/1995/208/10975

[provis99]

30. ENGLAND had the blight; Ireland didn't

The Irish potato crop was a bumper one. Because the ENGLISH crop failed, English soldiers took the Irish potato crop from the Irish at gunpoint. The story is far worse than the English simply refusing to do anything about an Irish crop failure. The real story is that the English crop failed, so they stole the Irish crop, leaving millions of Irish to starve as a result.

Much like how modern capitalism functions today.

[ColbertWatcher]

50. So, they're not starving because corn is being used for fuel?

Thank you.

I was wondering why the GOP-controlled media had suddenly latched onto the meme that alternative fuels (like ethanol) were behind people starving in the world.

I always suspected it had to do with the politics of keeping the rich in power.

[JeffR]

5. This just pisses me off no end.

Our history throughout the Western Hemisphere of meddling, subterfuge, military adventurism, "benign" neglect, fiscal brutishness and fig-leaf politics, has been a disgrace to everything the Constitution defines us as being about. It starts in Haiti - and in the maquiladora zone - and extends south, a very, very long way.

[BunkerHill24]

6. Bill Clinton had an opportunity to fix Haiti....he squandered..darn!

[Matariki]

12. Oh? Unlike helping to stage coups, like the Bush clan?

Care to explain how Clinton 'squandered' his opportunity to 'fix' Haiti?

[BunkerHill24]

21. I don't have to explain No-thing to you, Noth'in....

Indeed Bill Clinton squandered in Rwanda, Somalia and Haiti ,,,,,Go out there and prove me wrong.

....Again I don't have to prove what's already out there you can research yourself...


on edit: clarification

[Matariki]

46. Of course you don't sweetheart. You can just post idiotic statements you can't back up

'til the cows come home. Or at least until the pizza's ready.

[Ghost in the Machine]

14. So did your Saint Ronnie and Saint Poppy

Saint Ronnie:

"In January 1986, the unrest in Haiti alarmed United States president Ronald Reagan. The Reagan administration began to pressure Duvalier to renounce his rule and to leave Haiti. Representatives appointed by Jamaican prime minister Edward Seaga served as intermediaries who carried out the negotiations. The United States rejected a request to provide asylum for Duvalier, but offered to assist with the dictator's departure. Duvalier had initially accepted on January 30, 1986. The White House actually announced his departure prematurely. At the last minute, however, Jean-Claude decided to remain in Haiti. His decision provoked increased violence in the streets.

The United States Department of State announced a cutback in aid to Haiti on January 31. This action had both symbolic and real effect: it distanced Washington from the Duvalier regime, and it denied the regime a significant source of income. By this time, the rioting had spread to Port-au-Prince.

At this point, the military conspirators took direct action. Namphy, Regala, and others confronted the Duvaliers and demanded their departure. Left with no bases of support, Jean-Claude consented. After hastily naming a National Council of Government (Conseil National de Gouvernement--CNG) made up of Namphy, Regala, and three civilians, Jean-Claude and Michèle Duvalier departed from Haiti on February 7, 1986. They left behind them a country economically ravaged by their avarice, a country bereft of functional political institutions and devoid of any tradition of peaceful self-rule."
http://www.travelinghaiti.com/history_of_haiti/jean-claude_duvalier.asp


Saint Poppy:

December 17, 1990 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a radical Roman Catholic priest and opponent of the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier, is elected president of Haiti in a landslide victory. It was the first free election in Haiti's history. However, less than one year later, in September 1991, Aristide was deposed in a bloody military coup. He escaped to exile, and a three-man junta took power.

September 30, 1991 - The military in Haiti overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country's first freely-elected president.

October 1, 1991 - President George H.W. Bush condemned the military coup in Haiti, suspended economic and military aid and demanded the immediate return to power of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

http://www.kipnotes.com/George%20Herbert%20Walker%20Bush.htm

[Matariki]

10. Bill in Congress to cancel Haiti's debt

http://www.jubileeusa.org/jubilee-act.html

On Wednesday, April 16, 2008, the Jubilee Act (HR 2634) was debated and voted on the House floor and now moves to the Senate. If you'd like to watch a video of the House vote, visit the archived page on the CSPAN website. Proceedings on the Jubilee Act (HR 2634) begin at 1:21 (1hr, 20 min).

On Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007, the Jubilee Act (S 2166) was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT).

The Jubilee Act: Cancels impoverished country debt, prohibits harmful economic and policy conditions on debt cancellation, mandates transparency and responsibility in lending from governments and international financial institutions, calls for a new legal framework to restrict the activities of predatory “vulture funds,” and calls for a U.S. audit of debts resulting from odious and illegitimate lending.

[Hannah Bell]

11. The causes of the crisis

http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/24b.html



More recently, it's pertinent to ask how Haiti has gone from near self-sufficiency 30 years ago to a reliance on imports for a third of its food needs today. Agricultural production has declined and the population has grown. But it's also true that no Haitian government has intervened to support domestic food production, nor have the international financial institutions that have lent so many billions of dollars to Haiti prioritised the food producing sector.

...to many Haitians, US food aid, although saving lives, does not look like a humanitarian donation. Criticism of food aid, or manje sinistre as it is known in Haiti, exploded in the aftermath of Duvalier's fall in 1986. In The Rainy Season, published in 1989, Amy Wilentz explains how peasant groups perceive food aid as part of an 'American Plan' "to reduce self-sufficient farming, thereby causing peasants to migrate to Port-au-Prince, where they would provide a very cheap labour force to work in American assembly factories. Food aid would be used to lower the prices of Haitian crops, thereby providing a disincentive to further domestic production."

"At the same time people are starving, farmers are seeing their efforts to increase food production undermined by US policies and US-funded aid projects," said Tim Wise, executive director of Grassroots International.

The report blasts the notion of "export-led development" as well as US government pressure on Haiti to reduce tariffs and implement policies which "undermine Haitian food producers and weaken the development of democratic institutions in Haiti." However, the report, by its own admission, does not critique the Haitian government which has proved to be a willing accomplice in the anti-development schemes of Washington and the international lenders.

[Quantess]

44. Interesting article.

[magellan]

13. Something's wrong with this picture, all right

It's called US intervention. Bush** kidnapped their democratically elected president, Aristide, and in came the RW junta backed by its own thugs and UN forces under pressure from the US, France and Canada to "stabilize" things. Aristide's transgression? He saw the IMF and World Bank for the bloated leeches they are and rejected them, and that pissed off the elitists in Haiti who went crying to their fat cat counterparts in DC to do something to preserve their way of life. A way of life that was killing ordinary Haitians.

Everything the Right touches dies.

[Radical Activist]

18. Free trade results in poverty and starvation

A lesson to remember.

[Doctor Cynic]

39. To be more precise, one-sided trade does.

The situation is clearly not fair to the Haitians, since they have nowhere to go.

Japan and South Korea are two examples that exported and traded their way into prosperity while maintaining equal distribution of wealth.

[Billy Burnett]

23. Go over to DU's Latin America forum. Lots of research there.

DU's Latin America forum
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=405

[Billy Burnett]

25. Haiti's Food Crisis Has Its Roots in Pigs, Rice and Globalization

Haiti's Food Crisis Has Its Roots in Pigs, Rice and Globalization
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x3533
posted by magbana

With some good work on that thread also.

[shireen]

32. how to help

There's an interesting blog called Haitian Innovation, by former Peace Corp volunteers.
http://www.haitiinnovation.org

The entry dated Apr 17 has information about the current food crisis:
http://www.haitiinnovation.org/en/2008/04/17/haiti-food-security-update-4-17-2008

I asked about the most cost-efficient relief organizations, and one of the bloggers provided a list of non-profits.
Here's the list and comments he provided, and I've added the links.
- The World Food Programme is very efficient and feeds the most vulnerable provided they have the funds to do so.
http://www.wfp.org/english/
- Project Medishare habilitates malnourished children on the upper Central Plateau.
http://www.projectmedishare.org/
- Haiti Micah feeds street kids on the lower Central Plateau.
http://www.haiti-micah.org/
- CARE feeds people in the northwest one of the most environmentally degraded parts of the country.
http://www.care.org/
He also said, If you are interested in increasing the agricultural production of the country, part of the long term solution, take a look at Organization for the Rehabilitation of the Envrionment (ORE), Fondwa University,

Yesterday's New York Times had an article about the crisis, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html

[Hannah Bell]

34. Charity is fine - as a stopgap. But the question is, why is 80%

of their population so poor they have to supplement their diets with dirt?

Charity doesn't answer that question.

[shireen]

37. i'm not trying to answer that question

there's a crisis and relief organizations need funding to help those people. All I did was provide a list of organizations that are involved in feeding programs. That's all.

[GuvWurld]

35. This is exactly what Naomi Klein wrote about in Shock Doctrine

Come to think of it, John Perkins covers some of this in Confessions of an Economic Hitman.

[Wizard777]

36. I guess this is the Hatian equivalent of Green Teeth.

Durring the Irish potatoe famine. The Irish that had nothing to eat would eat grass and clover. Their corpse would be found with green teeth. Eating grass and clover put something in their belly. But it didn't keep them from dying from malnutrition. The same with the dirt cookies. It puts something thier belly. They maybe getting limited vitamins and minerals from the soil. But without proteins they will die from malnutrition.

[Doctor Cynic]

38. This definitely calls for anti-dumping duties.

Too often those countries are forced to remove tariffs against subsidized agricultural goods from the US (and Europe, with France the most guilty). By definition it's not free trade since one side is more privileged.

The WTO says that countries have the right to slap tariffs on imports if they are sold at below-market prices. Most definitely, Haiti should use it until either the agricultural subsidies are lifted or if the US and EU compensates Haiti for the subsidies their rice exporters received.

It will definitely require all third world countries to act together with one voice, which is fortunately starting to happen.

[gear_head]

40. being dependent on the US is a mistake

US food exports should be reduced to
zero, the sooner the better

[Doctor Cynic]

41. Yeah! Let's drastically reduce global food production in one fell swoop!

:bounce:

[eridani]

42. Japan has no truck with "free" trade horseshit with its rice market

That's why they aren't starving--high tariffs.

[pitohui]

53. eridani got the right answer in one note

that's the answer right now

japan is powerful and will protect its farmers, haiti is weak and can't or won't

[Hubert Flottz]

43. Don't they have any imported lapel pins?

Sounds like they are starting to see the "Thousand Points Of Light" in action.

[malaise]

45. One day the truth about what has been done to Haiti

by both the US and France will finally be exposed.
As David Rudder sings beautifully 'Haiti I'm Sorry'.

[ShaneGR]

48. Honestly, because I personally have met and talked to dozens of Haitians in south Florida

I believe that if you really want to take a hard look at history, and place blame, you have to point a big huge finger at France. The next finger points at America. And the roots of the problem come from George Washington and the original French government officials following the revolutionary war. What I'm trying to say is, the problem goes back 230 years. Haitians speak French for a reason, it was an enormously important French colony, and it could be argued that without Haiti, we wouldn't have won the revolutionary war.

[ColbertWatcher]

49. Why is Haiti starving? This picture says alot...

This is a satellite photo of the island of Hispaniola, the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican people can manage to be baseball players.

The Haitians?

They can't seem to hold jobs, like that guy Jean-Betrande Aristide.

For some reason, the people of Haiti may have elected him, but his bosses had other ideas and http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050801/klein">replaced him with someone more willing to their bidding.

So, it should come as no shock that the people of Haiti are eating dirt; they can't even vote right.



:sarcasm: off.

[LBJDemocrat]

51. Inflation of grain prices

Caused in large part by reduced supply due to land being reserved for ethanol production. I wish a prominent spokesperson for environmentalism would denounce the use of ethanol (especially corn-based) for food. People are starving.

[Blue_Tires]

55. to the top

[Arctic Dave]

56. Read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman", it is very enlightning.