Haiti - Agriculture: Purchase Of More Than 12,000 Tons Of Local Products

Haiti - Agriculture : Purchase of more than 12,000 tons of local products
(Haiti Libre) - 30/03/2015 08:37:41

More than 12,000 tons of local products were purchased from 7,500 small Haitian producers to enhance food security in the event of an emergency.

France is the first partner of the Haitian Government to allocate all of its food aid credits to a local productions purchasing program since 2005. The objective of this program is to encourage local production, guarantee income for farmers and structure the Haitian producer organizations. The aim is also to support small producers through a strengthening of internal governance program of four producer organizations.

Since 2005, 14.5 million have been granted to local productions purchases program in Haiti. These credits were used to buy from thousands of small Haitian producers 12,040 tons of local produce : 11,985 tons of grain (rice and ground corn) and 55 tonnes of pulses (beans and pigeon peas), 98% have been distributed to the World Food Programme (WFP) for its various programs including the School Feeding Program.

Approximately 2% (€ 0.3 million) of these funds were mobilized for investments and training in organizational management and accounting.

Meanwhile, an expertise of the Regional Agri-Food Cluster of Martinique (PARM) since 2011 has largely contributed to the diversification and improvement of the nutritional quality of local products not compete by US imports.

Furthermore, a concertation around the theme "local purchases and food security" with technical and financial partners working in this field (Brazilian Cooperation, IDB, EU, AFD, CANADA...) is underway to achieve a coordinated and coherent action of international donors .