ARTICLE - 22 MILLION - AGRICULTURE REFORM

22 MILLION TO SUPPORT AGRICULTURE POLICY REFORM IN HAITI
(Haiti Libre) -

A $15 million grant from the Inter-American Development Bank will assist Haiti in its efforts to modernize its agricultural policies and institutions to increase farm productivity and competitiveness. The IDB resources will be complemented with a $7 million grant from the Haiti Reconstruction Fund.

The program, the first of a series of three policy-based grants, will provide budget support as the Haitian government carries out reforms to address several of the major constraints hampering agriculture. The program was designed in coordination with other donors supporting Haiti’s efforts to improve agriculture, including the World Bank, IFAD, IICA, USAID, USDA, the European Union, France, Canada and Brazil.

Farming provides the principal means of subsistence for over 1 million Haitian families and generates about half of the country’s jobs. Agricultural productivity, which is lower than in other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, has declined over the past two decades, with significant output drops in key crops such as bananas, coffee and rice.

Among the reforms Haiti will undertake is strengthening the Ministry of Agriculture (MARNDR) to carry out its planning, programming and budgeting functions, improve its capacity to manage, monitor and evaluate programs and increase the effectiveness of its services. Under this program the ministry will create a team of public procurement specialists to boost its capacity to absorb and administer financial resources provided by the government’s treasury and donors.

This reform will enable the MARNDR to better execute programs under its management. At present, IDB grants are financing agriculture projects totaling more than $200 million in Haiti, including crop intensification, irrigation, rural value chains, farming technology transfers, land tenure clarification and watershed management.

Another reform involves updating land administration policies and legal and institutional frameworks. About 60 percent of privately owned parcels lack property titles, a situation that limits long-term rural investment and farmers’ access to credit. Land titling in Haiti is costly and cumbersome and governed by antiquated laws and procedures. Under this program the government will promote legislation to enable surveyors and notaries to use modern technologies that could increase the efficiency of their services.

Haiti will also promote new legislation to assign legal status to water user associations, enabling farmers to manage and maintain irrigation systems. Policies will be updated to ensure coordination between irrigation and watershed management. An inter-agency commission will monitor the management of the Péligre dam, seeking to balance the demands of hydro power generation with the need to provide water to irrigate the Artibonite valley, the country’s principal rice-growing region. To expand access to improved farming technologies the reforms will promote the creation of a renewed agricultural research system capable of providing guidance to local rural producers.

In addition, Haiti needs to build up its agricultural health system to international standards in order to protect crops and livestock from domestic and exotic pests and diseases. The reforms will start by establishing an operational plan with specific targets and rationalizing the use of financial resources for such services.