Week 2 Blog 1

June 18, 2008 haiti101

the past few months has devastated impoverished Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Angry crowds smashed shop windows and rampaged through the streets in several Haitian cities in April, leaving six people dead and prompting the resignation of the Caribbean nation’s prime minister.International aid groups and foreign governments rushed in new shipments of emergency aid, and Haitian President Rene Preval quickly announced subsidies to ease prices on staples such as rice and beans, which have doubled in the past year.In a country where about 80 percent of the 9 million residents already were struggling to survive on $2 a day before the price hikes hit, the situation has gone from bad to dire. The main problem is instability,” said Sophie Perez, head of programs in Haiti for Atlanta-based CARE USA, an international aid group. “Without stability and security, there will be no investments by foreign firms, and aid groups will find it difficult to work in Haiti.” The steep rise in food prices has prompted several aid groups and the Haitian government to call for renewed efforts to bolster Haiti’s own food production. But the challenges are severe. Erosion and soil exhaustion are widespread, with much of the island stripped of vegetation by charcoal merchants who supply the poor with the only fuel they can afford. Still, the countryside is filled with small farmers. Haiti’s historical breadbasket is centered on the Artibonite River valley, a few hours north of the capital, where rich soil and adequate water supplies have supported generations of farmers.

Today rice farmers still tend their plots but say they can’t afford to raise more than they need for personal use. “I used to work 50 plots of rice, but now I only raise enough to feed my own family,” said Dieu Maitre Guillaume, 49, who lives with his extended family in two ramshackle huts beside the valley’s main highway. “The price of a bag of fertilizer was 250 gourdes [about $6.50] a few years ago, and now it is 2,500 gourdes [about $65]. That’s killing us.”

www.ajc.com

I think throughout this summer I will continuously be informing everyone with the ever growing issue of starvation and poverty in Haiti. This article is just another example of how Haiti struggles on a day to day basis with food.  I truly do not know how to fix the problem of Haiti’s food shortages. We can continue to give the Haitian people aid but how long can anyone do that for. Haiti’s land is continuously being destroyed by either rain or fire. People are dying at an alarming rate but how much can any do without sustainability. The government and the people of Haiti are fed up with being hungry. They want to experience what it is like to be full again. Rising food prices and fuel costs are helping add to the every growing death tolls. The earth is only so big and only has so many resources if we deplete our resources and stop renewing them many other countries with have the same problem as the Haitians. I do not know how to cure this problem, but it is a problem that we cannot ignore.

 

 

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