PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Farmers in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas and one of the most destitute on Earth, have been spared hunger and starvation because of an innovative seed replacement program financed by international funders.
Haitians are already on alert against an impending onslaught of seasonal hurricanes, for which they have received emergency aid to last a few weeks after the storms hit the Caribbean state, as they most certainly will between now and September, U.N. sources said.
Sylvie Wabbes, a senior emergency operations officer with the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization, told United Press International the program was the first major U.N. effort to forestall hunger in the Haitian farmer communities and had already recorded success.
"This joint Ministry of Agriculture and IFAD and FAO program is the first one with this tripartite arrangements and of such large scale," Wabbes, agronomist, operations officer and budget holder for the FAO emergency operations and rehabilitation division, said in an interview.
She said agencies had earlier run smaller programs to supply farmers with good-quality seeds but the new effort owed much to "the knowledge and capacity of a strong national FAO emergency team."
The $10.2 million scheme to distribute and multiply quality seeds in Haiti significantly increased food production, making cheaper food accessible and boosting farmers' incomes, she said.
The program was spurred by high food prices, which will be the key topic at an international food security summit in November.
In the last rash of storms in 2008, Haitian farmers lost both crops and seeds that were washed away. This year, with U.N. help, farmers will have ready access to seeds even if the storms strike again.
Wabbes said the seed distribution program was supplemented by fertilizer supplies to help growers boost their crops.
Almost 250,000 farmers receive seeds through the program, which has already paid for itself many times over, FAO said. Bean seeds from Guatemala, distributed in winter at a cost of $300,000, produced $5 million in bean crops, FAO said.
"We are extremely encouraged by the results we are seeing in this program, which, along with favorable weather, has been an important factor in increasing the amount of food available to poor people in Haiti," said FAO Haiti Representative Ari Toubo Ibrahim.
Asked if the seed distribution was working in tandem with emergency aid to prepare Haitians for more hurricanes, Wabbes said, "Yes, we could say so," adding this time the farmers will have the security of strategic national reserves for seeds.
But, she warned, "there is much more work to do in terms of preparedness and coordination."
Haiti's farmers also need logistical support, once the first urgency of survival is addressed and in order to prepare the fields for the next agriculture season, Wabbes said.
More than half of Haitians -- between 5 million and 6 million -- live in rural areas and around 85 percent do some farming, which accounts for 26 percent of Haiti's economic output.
"Reviving agriculture in Haiti is a priority in the fight against hunger and for the development of rural areas where the rate of extreme poverty is three times higher than in urban areas," Ibrahim said.
