Whitney Bekaert

Natural Disasters in Haiti: Agricultural Problems

Natural disaster can happen anywhere, and they can be devastating. On January 12, 2010
Haiti was hit by a 7 point earthquake and Haiti is still trying to recover three years after this
horrible disaster. Only eight days after the earthquake, on January 20, 2010 Haiti was hit by a
second earthquake but it wasnt as severe. Then on October 20th, 2010 a cholera epidemic broke
out because of unclean water. In the first place Haiti was never a very rich country, and these
devastating things have only made the country fail more and more. The agricultural factors in
Haiti keep decreasing because of the farming, deforestation and food.
For people to survive and live healthy lives a country needs places for food to be
produced but in the last 15 years Haiti has become known as one of the most food insecure
countries in the world. Other countries have been forcing different trade policies onto the Haitian
government, which has caused problems with those who live in rural areas and has caused the
production of staple crops to drop. Farmers have to face other problems like high rents,
deforestation, not having agricultural things like fertilizers, way to transport the crops, soil
exhaustion, destruction of watersheds and not having seeds. About 55% of people who live in
Haiti live in rural areas but 90% of them live in poverty. Rice is one of the main things that
people in Haiti eat but the importing of rice has decreased greatly, they use to import 18,000 tons
of rice but now they only bring in 400,00 tons. Other countries are facing skyrocketing prices on
food import since Haiti has been unable to sell the foods they use too. It is very hard for Haitian
people to keep their livestock alive because of the unavailability of grain. Also many animals
were killed because of things the earthquake caused like mudslides, building collapses and the
flooding. Many animals also got sick by diseases, and 40% of pigs died from a disease called
Teschen. If Haiti had more resources and money they would be able to vaccinate their animals

Whitney Bekaert
but they cant.
The last time there was a huge extinction of animals was back when dinosaurs were
around, but now Haiti is facing a similar type of devastation, a mass-extinction of animals that
live around them because of the little resources left for any animal. Since 2001 thirteen different
species have gone extinct and four different kinds of mammals, eleven different kinds of birds,
and six different kinds of reptiles have been put on the endangered species list in Haiti. There is
such a lack of trees because people have cut them down to sell the trees for money, but what
people dont realize is by taking away the trees the land is left unprotected and the soil erodes.
The people are also taking away the homes of the forest animals and by doing these different
animals are dying off to extinction. Haiti loses about 3% of their forest each year according to
the United Nations sources. Haitis forests use to cover just about all of Haiti but today only
about 4% of the forest is left. About each year Haiti loses 1.35 tons of soil per kilometer because
of how much flooding has taking the soil away and the fact that trees arent there to protect what
soil is left. The reason people in Haiti cut down the trees is to use them for charcoal. Back in
1981 the government put protect over two different national parks so people wouldnt cut down
the trees but there has been reports of about 200 tree cutters coming in with weapons and still
taking the trees out of these national parks, and some of these tree cutters will even go to the
lengths of killing park guards. People in Haiti are desperate for food and even the money to buy
the food they need and some take extreme measures to get what they need because they want to
survive.
Each day people in Haiti are suffering from chronic malnutrition because of the lack of
food they are able to produce and to the lack of money the Haitians have to import/export foods
they need. Haiti has gone through many things that have made it very difficult for farmers grow

Whitney Bekaert
crops for people, in 2012 there was a severe drought and Haiti farmers lost 42-60% of all their
crops. Then Haiti was hit by Hurricane Isaac which caused horrible flooding which wiped out all
the crops once again. There is such a shortage of food that people have been forced to eat only
one meal a day. People try all different kinds of ways to make money so they can afford more
food, so families even have to send their young kids away to make money for the family. The
government and the NGOs are also trying to lower the prices on basic foods that people need to
try and fix the problem. Another major problem that Haiti ran into was on October 20, 2010
there was a Cholera outbreak because of the lack of clean water and irrigation systems, since
these systems have been destroyed by the earthquake. A study done by The Center for Human
Rights and Global Justice reported that only 55.2% of the Haitian population have clean water
but 70% of the population is able to get potable water. The only way many people can access
water is by going to garage-filled rivers, and these people use the water from anything to
household jobs to cooking food or drinking. Even with all these attempts to find ways to get
clean water, contaminated water is still the leading cause of death in infants and childhood
illnesses.
The things we as people do to our land, food and animals can cause problems if we dont
think about what we are doing. People in Haiti really werent think about what could and would
happen if they started taking away trees, which in turn takes away from wildlife and makes the
land erode faster. The earthquake that hit Haiti did make things worse than they already were
because all the disruption that happened to the builds, land and the clean water in the areas. I
think we could all try and help Haiti by trying to explain to them the factors of cutting down all
the trees, even though they make money off these trees, there are alternative ways that Haitians
could provide for themselves. People could also go in and teach them how to make sure water is

Whitney Bekaert
clean, so they dont ever have another cholera epidemic again. Haiti has been through alot but
there many ways that people as a whole could come together and help them rebuild all aspects
that were lost, like food, farming, buildings and the health of Haitians.