Caribbean Net News: Urban agriculture in Haiti facing lack of infrastructure

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: In Haiti, agriculture represents 25% of gross domestic product (GDP) and it constitutes the main activity of the rural people. An urban and peripheral urban agriculture develops alongside towns, but faces all kinds of difficulties.

"Activities are not good. But we have no better choice if we want to nourish our children," said a retailer of vegetables grown by herself at the principal public market in Port-au-Prince, Croix-des-Bossales.

Before devoting herself to this trade, Ghislaine survived by alternating the activities of cleaning lady and horticulturalist, in her native township of Kenscoff, east of Port-au-Prince.

The production of vegetables constitutes the essence of urban agriculture in Haiti. In fact, it is a question of growing vegetables out of pot, much like flower-growing in other countries.

According to the agronomist Gilles Damais, who has been working in Haiti for several years for a French engineering and design organisation, urban agriculture is found mainly in the most populous districts. "One places the pots on the roof of the houses. They profit at the same time from an excellent sunny climate - since there is no shade - and precipitation when it rains. One irrigates in the dry season."

Urban agriculture in Haiti involves private, NGO and the international co-operation initiatives. A project was observed a few years ago in Cit� Soleil, the largest shantytown in the country.

Another experiment in Gona�ves, a city located in the northern part of Port-au-Prince, aims at developing small kitchen-gardens a little larger than tyres in an urban environment.

Gilles Damais also mentions a private initiative by a contractor who undertakes hydroponic agriculture in an urban environment and who sells products of great quality, but very expensive, in some supermarkets.

The production resulting from these urban gardens is extremely marginal, explains the agronomist. "It is made initially for domestic consumption, namely the person who cultivates on the roof of her house will use vegetables for her daily food supply, but can also sell a part of her production to buy, for example, produce seeds, which are relatively expensive."

Besides urban agriculture, a culture much more important takes place alongside cities. It consists of the production of perishable goods, vegetables in particular, which are sent to the consumer markets very close to the Haitian capital.

According to Gilles Damais, this (peripheral urban) agriculture is carried out in two complementary areas in terms of eco-systems: a plain zone (La Plaine du Cul de Sac, located at the north of Port-au-Prince) and an altitude zone (Kenscoff, located in the east of the capital).

In the hot zone (the plain zone), "one finds onions, tomatoes and leafy vegetables, which are in fact spinach or amaranth (which is consumed at the local level)." In the mountain area (between 800 and 1,600 meters in altitude), "one also finds leeks, cabbages, carrots and a little bit of potato," states the agronomist.

Counter to urban agriculture, the peripheral urban culture constitutes, in terms of income generation, an important activity for the population which lives in these peripheral urban zones. The value of this peripheral urban agriculture is estimated at forty million US dollars annually.

Gilles Damais points to competition on the land as a major constraint to the development of peripheral urban agriculture. "If one is a small farmer with a very small plot of land, and one sees the price of land multiplying in the space of a few years, one is strongly tempted to sell his small piece of ground, to settle either in the peripheral urban or the urban zone, to live on his revenue, to finance, with the proceeds of the sale of land, the emigration of a child or the schooling of the others."

This situation involves, underlines Damais, a considerable reduction of the surface devoted to this (peripheral urban) agriculture. Another difficulty increasingly added to this panorama is, according to the agronomist, the absence of a production plan. "One has more and more difficulty to structure production and the flow of the products in this peripheral urban area," says Damais.

The market of peripheral urban agriculture in addition faces vigorous competition from increasing bulk imports coming from the Dominican Republic (which shares a common border with Haiti). "A few years ago, Haiti exported potatoes to the Dominican Republic. Today, Haiti imports a major part of its potato consumption from the Dominican Republic," notes Damais.

Finally, the specialist points to a lack of infrastructure, which prevents the regular delivery to the markets of products of quality, and at the same time resulting in significant losses at the time of marketing. "One can sometimes see in certain public markets in the capital, the perishable aspect of the products. The tomatoes are crushed, the leek leaves have started to rot, the cabbages have rotted in storage."

Damais thinks that it would be necessary to invest in market infrastructure in order to allow better conservation of perishable vegetable. For example, the cleaning up of the public markets of the capital and the setting-up of a cold storage, inevitably not sophisticated, would help the peripheral urban producers to satisfy better the urban consumers, emphasises Damais.

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