-----Original Message-----
From: Alamaine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: CTRL <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:10 am
Subject: [ctrl] 30 Years Ago Haiti Grew All the Rice It Needed. What Happened?
April 21, 2008
30 Years Ago Haiti Grew All the Rice It Needed. What Happened?
The U.S. Role in Haiti's Food Riots
http://counterpunch.com/
By BILL QUIGLEY
Riots in Haiti over explosive rises in food costs have claimed the lives
of six people. There have also been food riots world-wide in Burkina
Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivorie, Egypt, Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico,
Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
The Economist, which calls the current crisis the silent tsunami, reports
that last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%, but since January rice
prices have risen 141%. The reasons include rising fuel costs, weather
problems, increased demand in China and India, as well as the push to
create biofuels from cereal crops.
Hermite Joseph, a mother working in the markets of Port au Prince, told
journalist Nick Whalen that her two kids are “like toothpicks” they’ re
not getting enough nourishment. Before, if you had a dollar twenty-five
cents, you could buy vegetables, some rice, 10 cents of charcoal and a
little cooking oil. Right now, a little can of rice alone costs 65 cents,
and is not good rice at all. Oil is 25 cents. Charcoal is 25 cents.
With a dollar twenty-five, you can’t even make a plate of rice for one
child.”
The St. Claire’s Church Food program, in the Tiplas Kazo neighborhood of
Port au Prince, serves 1000 free meals a day, almost all to hungry
children -- five times a week in partnership with the What If
Foundation. Children from Cite Soleil have been known to walk the five
miles to the church for a meal. The cost of rice, beans, vegetables, a
little meat, spices, cooking oil, propane for the stoves, have gone up
dramatically. Because of the rise in the cost of food, the portions are
now smaller. But hunger is on the rise and more and more children come
for the free meal. Hungry adults used to be allowed to eat the leftovers
once all the children were fed, but now there are few leftovers.
The New York Times lectured Haiti on April 18 that “Haiti, its
agriculture industry in shambles, needs to better feed itself.”
Unfortunately, the article did not talk at all about one of the main
causes of the shortages -- the fact that the U.S. and other international
financial bodies destroyed Haitian rice farmers to create a major market
for the heavily subsidized rice from U.S. farmers. This is not the only
cause of hunger in Haiti and other poor countries, but it is a major force.
Thirty years ago, Haiti raised nearly all the rice it needed. What
happened?
In 1986, after the expulsion of Haitian dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc”
Duvalier the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loaned Haiti $24.6 million
in desperately needed funds (Baby Doc had raided the treasury on the way
out). But, in order to get the IMF loan, Haiti was required to reduce
tariff protections for their Haitian rice and other agricultural products
and some industries to open up the country’s markets to competition from
outside countries. The U.S. has by far the largest voice in decisions of
the IMF.
Doctor Paul Farmer was in Haiti then and saw what happened. “Within less
than two years, it became impossible for Haitian farmers to compete with
what they called ‘Miami rice.’ The whole local rice market in Haiti fell
apart as cheap, U.S. subsidized rice, some of it in the form of ‘food
aid,’ flooded the market. There was violence, ‘rice wars,’ and lives were
lost.”
“American rice invaded the country,” recalled Charles Suffrard, a leading
rice grower in Haiti in an interview with the Washington Post in 2000.
By 1987 and 1988, there was so much rice coming into the country that
many stopped working the land.
Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste, a Haitian priest who has been the pastor at St.
Claire and an outspoken human rights advocate, agrees. “In the 1980s,
imported rice poured into Haiti, below the cost of what our farmers could
produce it. Farmers lost their businesses. People from the countryside
started losing their jobs and moving to the cities. After a few years of
cheap imported rice, local production went way down.”
Still the international business community was not satisfied. In 1994,
as a condition for U.S. assistance in returning to Haiti to resume his
elected Presidency, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced by the U.S., the
IMF, and the World Bank to open up the markets in Haiti even more.
But, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, what reason
could the U.S. have in destroying the rice market of this tiny country?
Haiti is definitely poor. The U.S. Agency for International Development
reports the annual per capita income is less than $400. The United
Nations reports life expectancy in Haiti is 59, while in the US it is
78. Over 78% of Haitians live on less than $2 a day, more than half live
on less than $1 a day.
Yet Haiti has become one of the very top importers of rice from the U.S.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture 2008 numbers show Haiti is the third
largest importer of US rice - at over 240,000 metric tons of rice. (One
metric ton is 2200 pounds).
Rice is a heavily subsidized business in the U.S. Rice subsidies in the
U.S. totaled $11 billion from 1995 to 2006. One producer alone, Riceland
Foods Inc of Stuttgart Arkansas, received over $500 million dollars in
rice subsidies between 1995 and 2006.
The Cato Institute recently reported that rice is one of the most heavily
supported commodities in the U.S. -- with three different subsidies
together averaging over $1 billion a year since 1998 and projected to
average over $700 million a year through 2015. The result? “Tens of
millions of rice farmers in poor countries find it hard to lift their
families out of poverty because of the lower, more volatile prices caused
by the interventionist policies of other countries.”
In addition to three different subsidies for rice farmers in the U.S.,
there are also direct tariff barriers of 3 to 24 percent, reports Daniel
Griswold of the Cato Institute -- the exact same type of protections,
though much higher, that the U.S. and the IMF required Haiti to eliminate
in the 1980s and 1990s.
U.S. protection for rice farmers goes even further. A 2006 story in the
Washington Post found that the federal government has paid at least $1.3
billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals
who do no farming at all; including $490,000 to a Houston surgeon who
owned land near Houston that once grew rice.
And it is not only the Haitian rice farmers who have been hurt.
Paul Farmer saw it happen to the sugar growers as well. “Haiti, once the
world's largest exporter of sugar and other tropical produce to Europe,
began importing even sugar-- from U.S. controlled sugar production in the
Dominican Republic and Florida. It was terrible to see Haitian farmers
put out of work. All this sped up the downward spiral that led to this
month's food riots.”
After the riots and protests, President Rene Preval of Haiti agreed to
reduce the price of rice, which was selling for $51 for a 110 pound bag,
to $43 dollars for the next month. No one thinks a one month fix will
do anything but delay the severe hunger pains a few weeks.
Haiti is far from alone in this crisis. The Economist reports a billion
people worldwide live on $1 a day. The US-backed Voice of America
reports about 850 million people were suffering from hunger worldwide
before the latest round of price increases.
Thirty three countries are at risk of social upheaval because of rising
food prices, World Bank President Robert Zoellick told the Wall Street
Journal. When countries have many people who spend half to three-quarters
of their daily income on food, “there is no margin of survival.”
In the U.S., people are feeling the world-wide problems at the gas pump
and in the grocery. Middle class people may cut back on extra trips or
on high price cuts of meat. The number of people on food stamps in the
US is at an all-time high. But in poor countries, where malnutrition and
hunger were widespread before the rise in prices, there is nothing to cut
back on except eating. That leads to hunger riots.
In the short term, the world community is sending bags of rice to Haiti.
Venezuela sent 350 tons of food. The US just pledged $200 million extra
for worldwide hunger relief. The UN is committed to distributing more
food.
What can be done in the medium term? The US provides much of the world’s
food aid, but does it in such a way that only half of the dollars spent
actually reach hungry people. US law requires that food aid be
purchased from US farmers, processed and bagged in the US and shipped on
US vessels -- which cost 50% of the money allocated. A simple change in
US law to allow some local purchase of commodities would feed many more
people and support local farm markets.
In the long run, what is to be done? The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva, who visited Haiti last week, said “Rich countries need to
reduce farms subsidies and trade barriers to allow poor countries to
generate income with food exports. Either the world solves the unfair
trade system, or every time there's unrest like in Haiti, we adopt
emergency measures and send a little bit of food to temporarily ease
hunger."
Citizens of the USA know very little about the role of their government
in helping create the hunger problems in Haiti or other countries. But
there is much that individuals can do. People can donate to help feed
individual hungry people and participate with advocacy organizations like
Bread for the World or Oxfam to help change the U.S. and global rules
which favor the rich countries. This advocacy can help countries have a
better chance to feed themselves.
Meanwhile, Merisma Jean-Claudel, a young high school graduate in
Port-au-Prince told journalist Wadner Pierre "...people can’t buy food.
Gasoline prices are going up. It is very hard for us over here. The cost
of living is the biggest worry for us, no peace in stomach means no peace
in the mind…I wonder if others will be able to survive the days ahead
because things are very, very hard."
“On the ground, people are very hungry,” reported Fr. Jean-Juste. “Our
country must immediately open emergency canteens to feed the hungry until
we can get them jobs. For the long run, we need to invest in irrigation,
transportation, and other assistance for our farmers and workers.”
In Port au Prince, some rice arrived in the last few days. A school in
Fr. Jean-Juste’s parish received several bags of rice. They had raw rice
for 1000 children, but the principal still had to come to Father
Jean-Juste asking for help. There was no money for charcoal, or oil.
Jervais Rodman, an unemployed carpenter with three children, stood in a
long line Saturday in Port au Prince to get UN donated rice and beans.
When Rodman got the small bags, he told Ben Fox of the Associated Press,
“The beans might last four days. The rice will be gone as soon as I get
home.”
Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola
University New Orleans. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
People interested in donating to feed children in Haiti should go to
http://www.whatiffoundation.org/
People who want to help change U.S. policy on agriculture to help combat
world-wide hunger should go to:
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/ or http://www.bread.org/
--
Alamaine, IVe
Grand Forks, ND, US of A
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a
philosopher." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
"Being ignorant is not such a shame as being unwilling to learn." -
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758 (Benjamin Franklin)
~~~~~~~
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes.
