ARTICLE - STORM DAMAGES CROPS IN HAITI

STORM DAMAGES CROPS IN HAITI, FUELING FOOD PRICE WOES
(Reuters) -  By Susana Ferreira

PORT-AU-PRINCE - As Hurricane Sandy barreled toward the U.S. East Coast on Monday, the full extent of the storm's havoc on Haiti was just beginning to emerge.

Extensive damage to crops throughout the southern third of the country, as well as the high potential for a spike in cases of cholera and other water-borne diseases, could mean Haiti will see the deadliest effects of Sandy in the coming days and weeks.

Haiti reported the highest death toll in the Caribbean, as swollen rivers and landslides claimed at least 52 lives, according to the country's Civil Protection office. More than three days of constant rain left roads and bridges heavily damaged, cutting off access to several towns and a key border crossing with the Dominican Republic.

"The economy took a huge hit," Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told Reuters. He also said Sandy's impact was devastating, "even by international standards," adding that Haiti was planning an appeal for emergency aid.

"Most of the agricultural crops that were left from Hurricane Isaac were destroyed during Sandy," he said, "so food security will be an issue."

Sandy also destroyed banana crops in eastern Jamaica as well as decimating the coffee crop in eastern Cuba.

But the widespread loss of crops and supplies in the south, both for commercial growers and subsistence farmers, is what has Haitian authorities and aid organizations had worried about most.

The past several months have seen a series of nationwide protests and general strikes over the rising cost of living. Even before Hurricane Sandy hit, residents complained that food prices were too high.

PEASANT CROP LOSSES

A rise in food prices in Haiti triggered violent demonstrations and political instability in April 2008. Jean Debalio Jean-Jacques, the Ministry of Agriculture's director for the southern department, said he worried that the massive crop loss "could aggravate the situation."

"The storm took everything away," said Jean-Jacques. "Everything the peasants had in reserve - corn, tubers - all of it was devastated. Some people had already prepared their fields for winter crops and those were devastated."

In Abricots on Haiti's southwestern tip, the community was still recovering from the effects of 2010's Hurricane Tomas and a recent dry spell when Sandy hit.

"We'll have famine in the coming days," said Abricots Mayor Kechner Toussaint. "It's an agricultural disaster."

The main staples of the local diet, bananas and breadfruit, were ripped out by winds and ruined by heavy rains.

In the southwestern Grand Anse department, a boat that regularly comes from Port-au-Prince to deliver supplies and pick up produce to sell in the capital had not come in more than a week because of the storm. The cost of basic things, like fuel, had already jumped.

In Camp-Perrin, a mountainous region in the southwest peninsula where Sandy's first fatality was recorded after a woman tried to cross a swollen river, coffee planters lamented the loss of a harvest they were weeks away from collecting.

"Coffee is the bank account of the peasants," said Maurice Jean-Louis, a planter and head of a coffee growers' cooperative in Camp-Perrin. Rain flooded many storage areas as well, soaking coffee beans that were set aside for export. He called the damage "incalculable."

CHOLERA IN THE CAPITAL

In the capital, Port-au-Prince, Sandy destroyed concrete homes and tent camps alike, where 370,000 victims of the 2010 earthquake are still living. Haitian authorities said 18,000 families were left homeless in the disaster.

Aid organizations began reporting a sharp rise in suspected cholera cases in several departments, with at least 86 new cases alone coming from Port-au-Prince's earthquake survivor camps, according to Dr. Juan Carlos Gustavo Alonso of the Pan American Health Organization. Many communities are still cut off and only accessible by helicopter, he said, so the broader rise in cholera was "still too early to tell."

Since October 2010, a cholera outbreak has sickened almost 600,000 people and killed more than 7,400 in Haiti.

Both the Haitian state and international aid organizations distributed food, water and other items to affected camps and communities throughout the weekend, including personal distributions by President Michel Martelly.

"These stocks are running dangerously low," said George Ngwa, spokesman for OCHA, a humanitarian coordinating body in Haiti. "After Tropical Storm Isaac in August, these stocks have not been replenished. What we're doing is scraping the bottom."

(Editing by David Adams, desking by G Crosse)

ARTICLE - UN GLOBAL FOOD FORECASTS

UN GLOBAL FOOD FORECASTS GOOD BUT FEARS OVER YEMEN, SYRIA
(AFP) -

ROME — The UN's food agency said Wednesday that this year's forecasts for global food production are positive overall but warned that some areas will likely struggle due to armed conflict and displacement.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation's report forecasts "a record increase of 3.2 percent in world cereal production in 2012, mainly on the strength of a bumper maize crop in the United States."

"Wheat and coarse grains prices eased in May, mostly during the second half, driven by good supply prospects," the FAO said.

Despite the positive trend, "several regions of the world are expected to struggle with the consequences of poor rainfall, severe weather, armed conflict and displacement," the Rome-based agency said.

Countries in the Sahel continue to face serious challenges to food security due to locally high food prices and civil strife, it said, adding that Syria and Yemen are also experiencing increasing difficulties.

"The situation in Yemen and Syria reminds us of the clear link between food security and peace. Internal conflict is causing food insecurity. But it works the other way around as well," FAO head Jose Graziano da Silva said.

"Throughout the world we see crisis after crisis caused, in its entirety or in part, by the lack of food or disputes over natural resources, especially land and water," he added.

The report lists 35 countries -- 28 in Africa -- which are in need of external food assistance, including Afghanistan, North Korea, Haiti, Iraq and Mali.

West Africa faces malnutrition in several countries. Agricultural production in the Sahel, especially Niger, Mali and Chad, is threatened by the escalating conflict in Mali as well as locust outbreaks from North Africa.

Civil unrest in Syria has left an estimated one million people in need of humanitarian assistance while in Yemen about five million people are thought to need emergency food aid due to extreme poverty and prolonged conflict.

However, "record harvests and improved production were expected across much of Asia, North America, Central America and South America," the FAO said.

"World cereal stocks for crop seasons ending in 2013 are forecast to increase to 548 million tonnes, up seven percent from their opening levels and the highest since 2002," the report added.

ARTICLE - FERTILIZER - GOV'T SETS PRICE

THE GOVERNMENT SETS THE PRICE OF FERTILIZER
(Haiti Libre) -

This Monday, the Haitian government and a group of local importers of fertilizer, have signed an MOU to set the price of fertilizer. Thus, a bag of fertilizer for farmers, should not exceed 900 gourdes ($22US) and sulfate 550 gourdes ($13US). To arrive at these prices, it's about 260 million gourdes (, in a subsidy, that the Government will pay out of state coffers...

Thomas Jacques, the Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development explained "[...] The Government had decided to make a big effort for the recovery of agricultural production, and it made this contribution so that the price of fertilizer, which was 1500-1600 gourdes, depending on the area, will now be, since the signing of this MOU, a maximum of 900 gourdes. This means that from today, in the whole territory of the Republic of Haiti, Pont Sondé, Croix-des-Bouquets, in the South, Jérémie... regardless of the location, fertilizer prices will not exceed 900 gourdes. With the exception of the price of sulphate which may not exceed 550 gourdes.

This is a big decision that the state has taken to help relieve farmers. Today, following this first agreement that I made with local importers, the Ministry will go into all areas to broadcast and publicize this information [...]

Agents will be identified: associations or credible traders, who agree to undertake the sales of fertilizer at the fixed price of the State [...] we will, in collaboration with the Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister in charge of the promotion of the peasantry [Marie Mimose Félix], send agents, who will go into all areas of production, to all markets to ensure that the decisions I have just taken, are respected. We will take all legal measures against all those who violate these prices [...]"