In Haiti, a Struggle to Get Crops in the Ground
12 April 2010
A Haitian woman selling rice and dry products in Port-au-Prince.
This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Spring is the time when farmers in Haiti plant about sixty percent of their crops. But this spring is a struggle with disaster.
The January twelfth earthquake flattened much of Haiti's capital and surrounding areas. It left more than two hundred thousand people dead and about a million homeless.
International recovery plans include helping Haiti expand food production. But many farmers lost their tools in the quake. Landslides buried equipment.
And now seasonal rains do not make the situation any easier. The rains continue through May and June.
Many farmers need money for seeds and fertilizer. Sabine Wilke of the aid group CARE says many also lack the money to hire help to prepare the land.
SABINE WILKE: "For the planting, they also need local labor. And since they do not have enough money to hire people, the work will simply not be done."
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says it has delivered tools and seeds to thousands of families in the earthquake area.
The quake was centered near Port-au-Prince. An estimated six hundred thousand people left for the countryside. Experts say it will be difficult to feed them. Food prices are high, and many people fled the capital with only the clothes they were wearing.
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