Food Riots, Economic Theory, and 44 Cents a Day

Spring, 2008

Dear Friend of Beyond Borders,

The rioting over soaring food prices has stopped for now, but hunger continues to hold Haiti in its grip. Even before the price of rice tripled, one in five Haitian children endured chronic hunger.

I have two young children. I can’t imagine the anguish many Haitian parents regularly face as they put children to bed who have had nothing to eat all day.

The average per capita income of the poorest half of Haiti's population is 44 cents a day.

Consider this. According to the latest figures from the IMF, the average per capita income of the poorest half of Haiti’s population is 44 cents a day. That’s 44 cents to pay for water, shelter, clothing, fuel for cooking and food. And because most of Haiti’s food is now imported, it’s as expensive as food in the U.S.

It wasn’t always like this. When I first moved to Haiti twenty years ago, the country produced nearly all its own food. The rapid rise in Haiti’s dependence on imported food is not an accident. It is the calculated consequence of greed and a questionable economic theory unfairly imposed on Haiti while largely ignored by those world powers doing the imposing.





The central tenet of this theory is that all markets should all be opened and freed of government interference so that international competition can weed out the weaker producers and reward the most productive. It has been pushed with ideological fervor on poor countries like Haiti by the world’s wealthiest nations and the international bodies they control like the IMF and World Bank.

After freeing itself in 1986 from a dictatorship that the U.S. had supported for decades, Haiti was bankrupt and in bad need of help. Washington and the IMF placed a condition on its aid and loans. Haiti had to slash the tariffs that protected the livelihood of Haitian farmers. While the 35 percent tariff Haiti placed on foreign rice was considerably lower than the international average (43 percent), Haiti had little choice but to comply. It cut the tariff to just 3.5 percent.

Meanwhile, Washington continued to heavily protect its own rice producers with massive subsidies. U.S. taxpayers gave just 9,000 U.S. rice growers an average of $1 billion a year over the last ten years. This is roughly half their total income. With so much extra cash, American rice producers can easily undercut the price 90,000 Haitian rice farmers had to charge to survive. Rice imports to Haiti surged, from 7,300 tons in 1985 to 260,000 tons in 2004, making this tiny country the third largest importer of U.S. rice.

This not only squeezed many Haitian rice growers out of business, it also crowded out more nutritious grains from the Haitian diet. Millet, for example, has much more protein than rice and can be grown on mountainside lands that belonged to the poorest farmers.

Even before the recent spike in world food prices, food in Haiti had been growing more expensive. Because exports from Haiti couldn’t keep pace with the growing flood of imported food, the value of Haiti’s currency began to slide. This meant that the price of everything imported to Haiti began to rise, including the price of food.




Even keeping seed from one season to the next isn't possible for many farmers. With hungry children and without money to build effective storage to protect seed from pests, poor families are often forced to eat the seed they will need for the following planting season.In theory, higher international food prices should allow Haitian farmers to return to business. In practice, though, many Haitian farmers have lost their land and migrated to the cities and towns in a desperate search for work. Irrigation canals needed for rice farming have crumbled and silted up from neglect. And distressed mountainside farmers unable to fetch a fair price for their food have accelerated their harvesting of trees that get turned to charcoal to sell as cooking fuel for the growing urban population. With the loss of trees, the mountainside soil is washed to the sea, making the land less productive with each rain.

Instead of responding to Haiti’s hunger by investing in the capacity of Haiti’s farmers to produce more food and better care for their land, most foreign help comes in the form of donated food, which is mostly purchased from already subsidized U.S. producers. This aid increases the profits of U.S. agribusiness, but keeps Haiti perpetually dependent on others for their food and their future.

Jesus had very harsh words for those who made rules for others they wouldn’t live by themselves. Any theory that would have a nation give up its capacity to feed its own people deserves real scrutiny. But those who push this theory should have to live by its rules themselves.

In this electronic newsletter we look at the interplay of theory and practice in our work. We are reminded that theories have consequences. Beliefs shape behavior. Ideas influence action.

If there is a core theory guiding our work in Haiti, it is this—the people who have the most to lose from any decision should have a real say in shaping the decision. Too often the experts and policymakers are shielded from the consequences of their theories and decisions. Too often the most vulnerable are excluded from deliberations that affect them. Perhaps they will make some bad decisions. But at least they will own these failures and have a chance to learn from them. At least they won’t feel forced to riot to be heard.

You may be asking what you can do. Some groups will be donating more subsidized food. It is an understandable reaction to the sight of hungry children. But before the crisis fades from our minds, we need to think seriously about the deeper causes of hunger. The U.S. needs to play by its own rules and stop using tax dollars to help U.S. agribusiness push Haitian farmers deeper into poverty. The same money would be better spent as an investment in Haiti’s ability to feed itself.

That’s the direction Beyond Borders is taking. As you will read in this newsletter, we’ve started helping some of Haiti’s poorest farmers learn ways of farming more productively and sustainably. This is in keeping with the long thrust of our work, to build the capacity of the poorest to learn and organize and work for a better future, to know their choices and think more clearly about the consequences of those choices. That’s what education means to us, education in its best, most liberating sense. Every day we’re investing in education like this in schools, literacy centers, community organizations, and churches all around Haiti.

This isn’t flashy work. It is, however, the slow, intentional work that makes a lasting difference.

We invite you to consider deepening your partnership with us and the Haitian people by making a special commitment of ongoing support to this work.

With gratitude,

David Diggs

P.S. At the start of this letter I explained that the average daily per capita income of the poorest half of Haiti’s people is 44 cents. As an expression of solidarity with those who are hungry in Haiti, we invite you to join us in taking a day and eating only what you can buy for 44 cents or less. Please let us know if this is your intention by e-mailing me (ddiggs@beyondborders.net). This small act of solidarity will be meaningful to our brothers and sisters in Haiti who are hungry and who hunger for justice.