ARTICLE - FARMERS - S. MARTELLY - SOUTH

SOPHIA MARTELLY MET WITH FARMERS IN THE SOUTH
(Haiti Libre) -

Sophia Martelly, the First Lady of Haiti, completed last week, a tour of the Southern Department, especially in Camp-Perrin and Torbeck. The First Lady wanted, through various organizations and associations of peasants working in the field of food, industrial processing of local products and of the agriculture in general, to listen to the proposals of local organizations of farmers within the framework of the program against hunger and malnutrition, "Aba grangou", at the level of these regions.

Accompanied by representatives of these organizations and ministries of the agriculture and the environment, Sophia Martelly went firstly, to Gaïtan and Lévy, two communal sections of Camp Perrin, to discuss nutrition, vulnerability of the management systems of local products, production and the machinery used in agriculture.

At Gaïtan, she visited a "cassaverie" and a cassava processing centre, led since 1987 by the Organization of the planters of Maillous, of Gaïtan, and Trois Rac (OFMAGAT); then on to Lévy, and the organization ORE, and finally to the School Workshop of Camp Perrin, founded in 1968 by the Belgian Jean Sprumont, a training center for artisans and of the manufacturing of agricultural machinery, a real answer to the demand of the rural world in terms of agricultural production.

With 110 employees in its service, the Workshop-School of Camp-Perrin and its 35 sites across Haiti responds to a lack of animal-drawn plows. It has solid machinery estimated at about $4 million for local production.

Subsequently, Sophia Martelly visited the Organization for the Rehabilitation of the Environment (ORE), a local NGO that specializes since 1985 in fruit farming,the reforestation of fruit trees and the forest, the technology of storage of grain [about 250 tonnes of seed per year], and the drying of fruits, production of improved seeds, and varieties of fruit out of season, the establishment of irrigation systems for planting vegetables, and the export and sale of local products.

This tour of the South also led the First Lady of Torbeck where she met leaders of the Action Group for Economic and Social Empowerment of the Haitian Family (GRAFHES) around food at the local level, particularly through primary schools. Thus, the team visited two schools in Torbeck: the mixed institution of St. Paul and the National School St. Joseph, to inquire on the distribution of food led by GRAFHES. She also talked to some students of the St. Joseph School, National, Cœur de Jésus, Episcopal St. Paul, Boisrond-Tonnerre, evangelical Baptist; about bio products constituted from melon, peas, eggplant and spinach, that they have developed and managed on plots of land in their environment.

The visit of Ms. Martelly to the shopping centre of local products of GRAFHES allowed her to understand the importance of local food production in the fight against malnutrition in Haiti, and see how the strategy of a thoughtful community-based, focus on the development integrated by the local people, can make more effective all steps, including those of "Aba Grandou", aimed at reducing or eliminating hunger in the Haitian family.