Improved Seeds
Quality Protein Maize

Tree Crops
Mango
Avocado
Citrus
Bamboo
Grafting

Vegetable & Tuber Crops
Tissue Culture
and Minisetting

Economic Gains

Nutritional Benefits

Agricultural Education

Protection of the Environment

Background on Haiti
Descriptions of Haiti's agricultural and ecological crisis abound with dismal statistics. Certainly it is a fact that the country today faces severe agricultural stagnation, acute environmental degradation and widespread poverty. Technical know-how, quality planting material and production and marketing skills are severely lacking. The majority of arable land is planted with low-yield traditional crops, and farmers are forced for economic reasons to degrade the environment. Slash and burn farming remains the prevalent method of preparing land. The tree cover is consistently sacrificed for economic reasons and replaced with cash crops that erode the soils. The effects on the environment are disastrous: the long-term future of Haitian agriculture is threatened. Technical know-how, quality planting material and production and marketing skills are severely lacking. The situation is a recipe for an economic and food-security disaster. However, it is also true that cases exist where technically appropriate interventions have been successful in improving conditions. Crop yields are among the lowest in the region: The use of poor quality traditional seeds, which are, in fact, food grains purchased on the local markets, is the primary cause of low crop yields. There is a permanent demand on the local market for seeds for staple crops such as sorghum, corn and beans, which form the basis of the farming system. The lack of revenue resulting from these current farming methods has a terrible impact on the national economy and the population as a whole. Tree cover is diminishing for economic reasons: Traditional tree crops produce relatively low-revenue items such as charcoal, post-wood, planks and low quality fruits, and as a result trees are rapidly being cut down for economic reasons. Studies have shown that only commercially useful trees escape deforestation, for the simple reason that they earn more every year from their crops, than they are worth as wood. Increasing the population of such trees is therefore a vital priority - equally from the agricultural, environmental and economic standpoints. But high revenue fruit crops such as mangoes and mandarins, which offer some of the highest revenues available to hillside farmers, represent only a small percentage of the tree population. Tubers such as yams are also high revenue crops, but their production is restricted by the scarcity of plant material (due to low multiplication rates using traditional propagation techniques). Historically, little has been done to improve any of these crops and as a result potential revenues have been lost.

The current farming system
Numerous reports, including one made by SISA-USAID in 1995, indicate that the Haitian farming system is currently dominated by the production of staple crops such as corn, beans and sorghum, utilizing nearly 80% of the available farmland. Trees occupy a small, rapidly dwindling percentage of land use. Livestock suffers from a lack of adequate improved forage crop and free-range grazing techniques contribute to the deterioration of the environment. Vegetable and tuber crop production offers many opportunities to earn substantial income, but currently represent a small percentage of the farmers' production system. The over-all picture is one of low-income agriculture, with marginal quantities of land given to tree and vegetable crop production. This predominance of traditional low-yield crops, combined with the scarcity of quality seeds and plant-materials and the lack of production and marketing know-how imprison farmers in a cycle of subsistence farming and poverty.

ORE's Response Strategy
Our core programs are specifically designed to address the issues of low-yield crops dominating the farming system and widespread degradation of the environment and resulting poverty. The goal is twofold: firstly, to create a shift in production, increasing the amount of land used for high-revenue crops; and secondly, to increase the profitability of staple crops, fruits, spices and vegetables by improved production and marketing. Our programs supply the necessary improved staple crop seeds, help introduce and propagate commercial fruit and spice trees, support vegetable and tuber crop production and promote farmer-marketing programs. Profits from successful fruit, vegetable and tuber crop production increase land use for these crops, and by using improved seeds, farmers can produce the same quantity of staple crops - which are an essential element of the Haitian diet - on less land.

The goals are to create increased permanent tree cover, improved nutrition, and more income for farmers, through a shift from traditional subsistence farming patterns to commercial agriculture.