A new menu

AID workers sometimes blame Haiti’s seemingly limitless supply of cheap imported rice for the country’s struggle to feed itself. More than half the population lives on the land, but still the country ships in half its food and 80% of its rice. Diri Miami, as imported rice from the United States is locally known, has become a staple over the past 30 years. The imports are prevalent partly because, at 3%, Haiti’s import tariffs on food are among the lowest in the Caribbean. This, combined with generous subsidies to farmers in the United States, means that the rice is cheaper than locally produced food. Many have argued for higher tariffs to protect local farmers. But a new drive to improve self-sufficiency aims not to raise tariffs but to make Haitian agriculture more efficient—and to change Haitian diets, too.

Michel Martelly, the president, has declared that within three years he wants Haiti to be producing 60% of its own food. So far higher duties are not on the agenda. Though it may undercut local farmers, cheap foreign produce at least means that “people have food on the table”, says Pierre Gary Mathieu, head of the government’s food-security unit. “A government has to make a choice: you have to feed people, or else there are political costs,” he says. In the short term, at least, raising tariffs could be disastrous in a country where three-quarters of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Already, one in ten people struggles to eat a daily meal and half eat only two meals, with little meat, vegetables, eggs or milk.