The complicated
situation of Aid and Rice in Haiti
The situation
in Haiti grows complicated ... fast.
The cargo ship
Sarine has a double-steel hull and is roughly 330 feet long. And
now, pulled up to the quay in Port-au-Prince, the "grabbing
box" from a huge off-load crane reaches down into the vessel's
hold, and, like the hand of God, lifts another half-ton or so of
rice out - hundreds of thousands of individual grains of rice. Then
the loose rice is dumped into a white, V-shaped steel hopper whose
nozzle sits inside a small hut on the Port-au-Prince waterfront.
Using gravity,
the hopper directs the rice into 25-kg (55-pound) white plastic
bags, with blue stars on their fronts and the words "AMERICAN
RICE" written on their sides. After that - using a sewing machine
- the top of each bag is sealed.
As I watch,
over and over - bag after bag after bag - a man running the V-shaped
hopper turns to me. He rubs his belly.
"I'm hungry,"
he says in French.
"Well,"
I respond, "why don't you take some rice for yourself? There's
a lot."
The man flashes
a grin back, and shrugs. "Yes," he says, "that's
possible. But I'm not that kind of hungry."
The rice bags
move from the factory along an assembly line to waiting trucks which
will travel deeper into Haiti to feed a nation still suffering from
hunger on a vast scale.
But the economy
of rice in Haiti says everything about the condition the country
is in. The US government subsidizes and "donates" ton
after ton of rice in Haiti and in so doing has through the last
several decades completely undercut Haitian rice farmers and left
them destitute and migrating into cities where they live in hovels
that were destroyed by the quake.
As recently
as the early 1980s, Haiti was producing just about all of its own
rice. Now more than 60 percent is imported from the US, making it
the fourth largest recipient of American rice exports in the world.
That was before the quake and now with donated rice coming in as
well, Haiti is even more awash in rice while American agribusiness
makes billions of dollars every year through generous government
subsidies.
There is perhaps
some bitter irony here that the subsidies were promoted in large
part by President Clinton to help his home state of Arkansas, the
largest rice producing state in the US, thereby crippling a sector
of the economy in Haiti where Clinton has worked so tirelessly to
help with the recovery.
"You might
say it is a perfect metaphor for what is wrong with aid to Haiti,"
says Marc Cohen, a senior researcher for Oxfam, one of the largest
non-government organizations (NGOs) in the world, which raised approximately
$106 million for a three-year response in Haiti and finds itself
struggling to deliver the aid effectively.
"Instead
of bringing subsidized rice in on ships from Miami, we could be
helping Haiti grow rice in its own fields," adds Cohen,
who worked for many years in Haiti with the International Food Policy
Research Institute and studied the broad economic impact of US rice
subsidies, or "Miami rice," as it is known here.
by Donovan Webster,
Jan 2012
CBSnews.com
In the meantime,
rice distribution continues. People have to be fed. Men used to
watch from above as women waited in line to collect rice. Only women
were allowed to collect rice as officials say women are less aggressive
in aid lines and distribute food more equitably.
Like us I am
sure the people of Haiti would like pasta, cakes, fruit, vegetables,
juices, pizza, bread. Some can afford it. Most cannot. Who want
sto eat rice and nothing but rice everyday?
Black Economics
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