Canada will be part of future efforts to rebuild Haiti’s shattered agricultural infrastructure but it is too early to say how much it will contribute, says a government official.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is urging members to contribute money for rebuilding roads, a sugar refinery, irrigation channels and other infrastructure damaged or destroyed in the Jan. 12 earthquake that is estimated to have killed more than 200,000 people.
Canada joined Belgium, Brazil and Spain as the first countries to pledge money to the effort. Canada’s contribution was part of the $85 million pledged by the Canadian International Development Agency.
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The Haitian government says at least $700 million US is needed over the next 18 months, including $32 million now to buy seeds, tools and fertilizers that farmers will need for March planting.
“It is hard for us to speculate now on what our engagement will be for the reconstruction phase,” Jean-Luc Benoit, director of communications for international co-operation minister Bev Oda, said in a Feb. 12 interview. “But Canada will be there, definitely.”
He said the emphasis now is on getting emergency relief and medical help to the nation one month after the disaster that left as many as three million people homeless. Canada will be part of a conference in New York at the end of March where long-term needs, costs, organization and co-ordination issues will be discussed.
“One of the challenges will be who co-ordinates,” said Benoit. “But whatever is decided, we will be there as we have in the past.”
He noted that Haiti is the second largest recipient of Canadian aid and the largest in the Americas.
Meanwhile, the Rome-based FAO says it is prepared to co-ordinate efforts to raise money needed for investment in agriculture and at a meeting in Rome Feb. 12 on the issue, FAO director general Jacques Diouf complained that the international community has not responded strongly to the call for short and medium-term funding for food and agriculture in Haiti.
“At a time when Haiti is facing a major food crisis, we are alarmed at the lack of support to the agricultural component of the United Nations appeal,” he said according to a text of his remarks published by the FAO.
The UN had appealed for $575 million with $23 million dedicated to short-term agricultural needs. He said less than $2 million had been pledged so far.
From Rome, FAO communications officer Hilary Clarke said in an e-mail there are reports from officials on the ground in Haiti that farmers and their families are beginning to eat their seed stocks because of growing hunger and a lack of food aid getting to rural areas.
“With regard to response, so far there has been very little coming for agriculture, understandable given the enormity of the other problems the country is facing,” she wrote. “But for the next planting season, it is really important.”
The earthquake was the second catastrophe to hit the food-producing capacity of the poor country in less than two years.
“In September 2008, the Haitian agriculture sector suffered severe damage from a series of back-to-back tropical storms and hurricanes from which parts of the country still have not recovered,” said the FAO.
Another hurricane season is just months away.
Included in the Haitian government plan for resurrecting the agriculture sector is a call for encouraging farmers throughout the country to plant sweet potatoes and rebuilding storage facilities for food and grain.
