17 June 2008

Food Crisis Threatens Economic Progress in Americas

United States creates food task force to aid hard-hit Haiti

A woman carries bags of potatoes outside a market in Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince.

By Eric Green
Staff Writer

This is the second in a series of articles examining the regional implications of a global food shortage.

Washington -- Western Hemisphere officials warn that social and economic gains made in the Americas over the last decade could be reversed because a looming food crisis is causing unrest in the region.

Analysts cite a lack of access to food, shortfalls in food production, or the rising costs of food as sparking street demonstrations in such countries as Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru and Haiti.

Even in the region’s major food-exporting nations, the food crisis has hit home. Tens of thousands of people marched through Mexico City in February 2007 to protest the rising price of tortillas, a food staple for many Mexicans. In Argentina, farmers protested in April against export taxes on agricultural products imposed by the government due to rising world food prices.

José Luis Machinea, executive secretary of the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in an April 18 statement that food price hikes might increase poverty and indigence in the Americas by more than 10 million people.

Haiti, where the country’s most economically depressed citizens resort to eating “mud cookies” made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening, is being described as the epicenter of the region’s food crisis.

UNITED STATES CREATES FOOD TASK FORCE FOR HAITI

In response to Haiti’s perilous situation, the United States in late May created a food task force for Haiti composed of 14 officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department. The task force is coordinating short-term assistance and medium- and long-term programs to help the Caribbean nation.

USAID’s José Cárdenas told America.gov the task force is focusing on expanding income-generation programs in Haiti to create “jobs that enable the urban poor to earn income to buy food.” The task force also is examining ways to improve the country’s road and irrigation systems to increase agricultural productivity.

Cárdenas, USAID’s acting assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, said the most effective use of U.S. government resources in Haiti will provide its people “with the economic opportunity to address their own food needs while simultaneously contributing to the longer-term solution to Haiti’s development.”

USAID’s numerous emergency programs to help Haiti through its immediate crisis include contributing $45 million in food aid, which will benefit almost 2.5 million of the country’s most vulnerable people.

U.S. official José Cárdenas says an American task force for Haiti will help poor Haitians earn income to buy food. (AmericasRelief)

In addition, a “food basket” program will ship about 36,500 metric tons of food to Haiti.

Cárdenas said the emergency U.S. food assistance will temporarily improve the situation for Haiti’s poor. However, he said, food insecurity in Haiti is a “long-term problem that must be addressed by long-term development interventions.”

He said the key to addressing Haiti’s food crisis is long-term, coordinated, international engagement. Street demonstrations in April, Cárdenas said, “remind us that … progress, although significant, remains fragile” in Haiti.

The April demonstrations protested rising food prices. The price of rice, a Haitian staple, has risen almost 80 percent since September. The demonstrations left at least five people dead and many stores looted. Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis was dismissed April 12 for not doing enough to improve the economy and control the soaring food prices.

The United States, Cárdenas said, remains “firmly committed to Haiti’s development.” He said the U.S. 2008 fiscal year assistance to Haiti totals more than $279 million and the Bush administration’s fiscal year 2009 request for the country exceeds $245 million.

U.S. aid to Haiti supports economic growth, agriculture, health care, education, governance and the rule of law, elections, security and critical humanitarian needs.

Haitian President René Préval must “install a new and more effective government as soon as possible” and hold overdue elections for the Haitian Senate, where a lack of a quorum could shut down that chamber, Cárdenas said. The United States has allocated $3.8 million, in coordination with other international donors and the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, to administer those elections.

Cárdenas also cited the U.S.-Brazil Biofuels Partnership, which targets Haiti, El Salvador, St. Kitts and Nevis, and the Dominican Republic to help them offset a portion of their imported oil needs with domestically produced ethanol. The initiative aims to attract private investment in local biofuels industries in those countries. (See “Turning Point Reached in Developing Alternative Fuels Plan.”)

U.S. FOOD SECURITY AID FOR THE AMERICAS

In addition to its emergency food programs, USAID supports food security programs in Latin American countries. In Guatemala, that assistance benefits about 500,000 poor families, and it helps another 400,000 poor families in Honduras.

Food security means a population has reliable access to sufficient food to meet its dietary needs for a productive and healthy life.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also provides agricultural commodities to needy recipients in such countries as Bolivia, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

See “USAID Announces Additional Emergency Food Assistance for Haiti” on the USAID Web site.

For more information, see “U.S. Supports Ambitious U.N. Plan to Combat Global Food Crisis” and “Asians Especially Vulnerable to Food Shortages and High Prices.”