Food insecurity and hunger are chronic issues in Haiti, which is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and the second most densely populated. Rapid population growth and periods of economic decline linked mainly to political and social turmoil are only some of the factors that have led to dramatic poverty for most of Haiti’s people. The socio-economic indicators of the UN Human Development Index for 2007/2008 ranked Haiti 146th among 177 countries.
Although agriculture is an important sector in the overall economy, Haiti does not produce enough food crops and livestock to feed its people. The country has to import 60 per cent of the food it needs, including as much as 80 per cent of the rice it consumes.
There is a dramatically large gap between rich and poor, and inequality is likely to increase as the income gap widens even further. The poorest 40 per cent of the population have access to less than 6 per cent of the country’s income, and the richest 2 per cent of Haiti’s people control 26 per cent of national wealth. Haiti’s poorest people depend mainly on self-employment and remittances for their income, while poor people who are relatively better off derive their income mainly from wage earnings and remittances. Remittances are crucial for the survival of broad sectors of the population.
The overall incidence of poverty in the country is 77 per cent. But in rural areas, which are home to 52 per cent of Haiti’s population, 88 per cent of people are poor and 67 per cent are extremely poor. Rural people have a per capita income that is about one third of the income of people living in urban areas. And a large segment of the rural population has extremely limited access to basic services, Only 10 per cent have access to electricity and less than 8 per cent have access to drinking water.
The principal activities in rural areas are agriculture and commerce, which together employ more than 85 per cent of the economically active rural population. Farmers generally rely on multiple activities for household income.
Only one in every five farmers depends for a livelihood solely on raising crops and/or livestock on his or her own farm. Other income-generating activities include wage labour, extraction (of sand, chalk or charcoal), crafts and small-scale trade. For rural people in general, remittances account for an average of 15 per cent of income, off-farm work accounts for 5 per cent, wage labour for about 5 per cent and other activities for about 17 per cent.
The country is vulnerable to hurricanes, flooding and other climate-related disasters. In 2008 climatic disasters caused losses and damage worth US$200 million to the agricultural sector and resulted in food insecurity that affects an estimated 3 million people, one third of the population. In the wake of the disasters, both urban and rural poverty rates have risen. The issue of climate change presents crucial challenges for Haiti’s development.
Who are Haiti’s poor rural people and where are they?
The poorest groups of rural people in Haiti are:
• women who are heads of households
• rural workers who depend exclusively on wage employment
• landless farmers (sharecroppers)
• fishers who do not have their own boats
• charcoal producers with no other activity
The incidence of rural poverty and extreme poverty is highest in the North-East, but it is also very high in the Artibonite, North-West and Centre departments. Almost one quarter of the country’s poor people live in the Western department, where Port-au-Prince is located.
Why are they poor?
An analysis by the World Bank highlights the relation between low income and such factors as poor access to credit, lack of infrastructure, low educational levels and limited social capital. Other studies indicate that the main causes of poverty are inequality of access to inputs — tools, water, good land and knowledge — and lack of equity in income distribution and the existence of power structures that preserve inequalities. There is a clear link between poverty and vulnerability in Haiti, where poor households have a limited capacity for response to recurrent natural crises and to the effects of political instability.
Haitians living in rural areas have suffered as a result of increasing pressure on available resources. Because of pressure on land for agriculture, exacerbated by urban encroachment on arable flatlands and irrigated land, the agricultural sector consists mainly of small-scale subsistence farms. Average land holdings are less than 1 ha in size. A context of unclear property rights, a vicious circle of environmental degradation, little available technology and credit, and weak market infrastructure make the development of sustainable agricultural income difficult. At present 80 per cent of farms fail to produce enough to feed household members, who resort to non-farm activities for complementary income.
Rural communities that face deterioration of their living conditions have developed two main coping mechanisms:
- survival through subsistence farming
- seasonal or permanent migration to cities, to the neighbouring Dominican Republic or, if the opportunity exists, to North America or Europe
Source: IFAD
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