"Give a man a fish, and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."
For decades the cry from the United Nations and others has been to throw free food and other aid at countless countries. When the problem in those and other countries only worsened, the cry was to throw more food and aid to them. Now, in the aftermath of Haiti, the real fruits of those labors are harvested: Haiti can't feed itself.
The world has finally come to the stark realization that while helping a Sally Struthers child may make you feel good at the time, it's the wrong way to deal with the problem of world hunger, because it's harmful in the long run. Clearly, the more food and money we have thrown at impoverished countries, has only made the situation worse. And when it gets worse, we simply throw more food and money at it. It's a bottomless pit, and now those in charge are finally seeing it.
See the story below, link to the full article included.
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With cheap food imports, Haiti can’t feed itself
U.S. policies encouraging low tariffs on imports destroyed local agriculture
Women carry a bag of rice on their heads at a food distribution
center in Port-au-Prince, Sunday, March 14. Decades of inexpensive
imports — especially rice from the U.S. — punctuated with abundant
aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left
impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves.
Ramon Espinosa / AP file
(Full Story Here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The earthquake not only smashed markets, collapsed warehouses and left more than 2.5 million people without enough to eat. It may also have shaken up the way the developing world gets food.
Decades of inexpensive imports — especially rice from the U.S. — punctuated with abundant aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves.
While those policies have been criticized for years in aid worker circles, world leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.
They're led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton — now U.N. special envoy to Haiti — who publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti's rice production. Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice.
"It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else."
Clinton and former President George W. Bush, who are spearheading U.S. fundraising for Haiti, arrive Monday in Port-au-Prince. Then comes a key Haiti donors' conference on March 31 at the United Nations in New York.
Those opportunities present the country with its best chance in decades to build long-term food production, and could provide a model for other developing countries struggling to feed themselves.
"A combination of food aid, but also cheap imports have resulted in a lack of investment in Haitian farming, and that has to be reversed," U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told The Associated Press. "That's a global phenomenon, but Haiti's a prime example. I think this is where we should start."
Haiti's government is asking for $722 million for agriculture, part of an overall request of $11.5 billion.
That includes money to fix the estimated $31 million of quake damage to agriculture, but much more for future projects restoring Haiti's dangerous and damaged watersheds, improving irrigation and infrastructure, and training farmers and providing them with better support.
Haitian President Rene Preval, an agronomist from the rice-growing Artibonite Valley, is also calling for food aid to be stopped in favor of agricultural investment.
Today Haiti depends on the outside world for nearly all of its sustenance. The most current government needs assessment — based on numbers from 2005 — is that 51 percent of the food consumed in the country is imported, including 80 percent of all rice eaten.
The free-food distributions that filled the shattered capital's plazas with swarming hungry survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake have ended, but the U.N. World Food Program is continuing targeted handouts expected to reach 2.5 million people this month. All that food has been imported — though the agency recently put out a tender to buy locally grown rice.
Street markets have reopened, filled with honking trucks, drink sellers clinking bottles and women vendors crouched behind rolled-down sacks of dry goods. People buy what's cheapest, and that's American-grown rice.
The best-seller comes from Riceland Foods in Stuttgart, Arkansas, which sold six pounds for $3.80 last month, according to Haiti's National Food Security Coordination Unit. The same amount of Haitian rice cost $5.12.
"National rice isn't the same, it's better quality. It tastes better. But it's too expensive for people to buy," said Leonne Fedelone, a 50-year-old vendor.
Riceland defends its market share in Haiti, now the fifth-biggest export market in the world for American rice.
But for Haitians, near-total dependence on imported food has been a disaster.
Page 2 of the story continues here
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For decades the cry from the United Nations and others has been to throw free food and other aid at countless countries. When the problem in those and other countries only worsened, the cry was to throw more food and aid to them. Now, in the aftermath of Haiti, the real fruits of those labors are harvested: Haiti can't feed itself.
The world has finally come to the stark realization that while helping a Sally Struthers child may make you feel good at the time, it's the wrong way to deal with the problem of world hunger, because it's harmful in the long run. Clearly, the more food and money we have thrown at impoverished countries, has only made the situation worse. And when it gets worse, we simply throw more food and money at it. It's a bottomless pit, and now those in charge are finally seeing it.
See the story below, link to the full article included.
--------------------------------------------------
With cheap food imports, Haiti can’t feed itself
U.S. policies encouraging low tariffs on imports destroyed local agriculture
Women carry a bag of rice on their heads at a food distribution
center in Port-au-Prince, Sunday, March 14. Decades of inexpensive
imports — especially rice from the U.S. — punctuated with abundant
aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left
impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves.
Ramon Espinosa / AP file
(Full Story Here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The earthquake not only smashed markets, collapsed warehouses and left more than 2.5 million people without enough to eat. It may also have shaken up the way the developing world gets food.
Decades of inexpensive imports — especially rice from the U.S. — punctuated with abundant aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves.
While those policies have been criticized for years in aid worker circles, world leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.
They're led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton — now U.N. special envoy to Haiti — who publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti's rice production. Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice.
"It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else."
Clinton and former President George W. Bush, who are spearheading U.S. fundraising for Haiti, arrive Monday in Port-au-Prince. Then comes a key Haiti donors' conference on March 31 at the United Nations in New York.
Those opportunities present the country with its best chance in decades to build long-term food production, and could provide a model for other developing countries struggling to feed themselves.
"A combination of food aid, but also cheap imports have resulted in a lack of investment in Haitian farming, and that has to be reversed," U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told The Associated Press. "That's a global phenomenon, but Haiti's a prime example. I think this is where we should start."
Haiti's government is asking for $722 million for agriculture, part of an overall request of $11.5 billion.
That includes money to fix the estimated $31 million of quake damage to agriculture, but much more for future projects restoring Haiti's dangerous and damaged watersheds, improving irrigation and infrastructure, and training farmers and providing them with better support.
Haitian President Rene Preval, an agronomist from the rice-growing Artibonite Valley, is also calling for food aid to be stopped in favor of agricultural investment.
Today Haiti depends on the outside world for nearly all of its sustenance. The most current government needs assessment — based on numbers from 2005 — is that 51 percent of the food consumed in the country is imported, including 80 percent of all rice eaten.
The free-food distributions that filled the shattered capital's plazas with swarming hungry survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake have ended, but the U.N. World Food Program is continuing targeted handouts expected to reach 2.5 million people this month. All that food has been imported — though the agency recently put out a tender to buy locally grown rice.
Street markets have reopened, filled with honking trucks, drink sellers clinking bottles and women vendors crouched behind rolled-down sacks of dry goods. People buy what's cheapest, and that's American-grown rice.
The best-seller comes from Riceland Foods in Stuttgart, Arkansas, which sold six pounds for $3.80 last month, according to Haiti's National Food Security Coordination Unit. The same amount of Haitian rice cost $5.12.
"National rice isn't the same, it's better quality. It tastes better. But it's too expensive for people to buy," said Leonne Fedelone, a 50-year-old vendor.
Riceland defends its market share in Haiti, now the fifth-biggest export market in the world for American rice.
But for Haitians, near-total dependence on imported food has been a disaster.
Page 2 of the story continues here
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