Seeding reconstruction? series
Part 4 - Seed distribution: a “mal nécessaire” (necessary evil)?
Posted March 30, 2011
Part 4 of 5
In August, 2010, a multi-agency, 115-page report recommended that seed distributions to Haitian farmers halt or be “honed” because “[e]mergency seed aid should be used only to address emergency problems, and those in which seed security is a problem.”
The Seed System Security Assessment/Haiti (SSSA) report, authored principally by researcher Louise Sperling of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), found that Haiti had “deeply chronic” seed problems – mostly the lack of appropriate, quality seeds – but that Haitian farmers did not face a “seed emergency” problem per se.
Still, the seed distributions continued throughout 2010, in accordance with the original Agriculture Cluster plan and in accordance with the Ministry of Agriculture (MARDNR)’s recommendations [see Part 2], and even though by early summer, most IDPs had left the countryside.
Chart showing Port-au-Prince cell phones out of and back into the capital.
From Internal Population Displacement in Haiti, Karolinska Institutet
and Columbia University, May 14, 2010.
Some 40 percent had returned to the capital by March 11, and by June 18, 66 percent were gone, meaning that only about 125,000 IDPs remained in the countryside as of that date.
In a mid-March email exchange, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Francesco Del Re, coordinator of the Agriculture Cluster, explained to Haiti Grassroots Watch that not everyone agreed with all of the SSSA, and that there are “some very strong (and fixed) opinions,” adding “as we are speaking, there is a very open debate over the best way to subsidize/support the Haitian agriculture.”
At a February 8 meeting of the Agriculture Cluster, where – for the second meeting in a row, there was no apparent MADNR representative – the FAO announced that 1,508 MT of cereals and legumes and 3,082 Kg of vegetable seeds would be distributed to four departments this spring. Between 150,000 and 200,000 families will benefit from the seed, plant cutting and tool distribution, Del Re told the meeting.
“This year we won’t do too much direct distribution of seeds and tools, because we want to start doing more sustainable work,” Del Re told the meeting.
When asked why only certain areas were chosen, another FAO staffer, Carmen Morales, said “these are the areas directly effected” by the earthquake, but she also added: “This is where the donors are working. Let’s be clear on that.”
According to Del Re, the seed distributions are a “mal nécessaire” (a necessary evil).
“It is not optimal. It is not the kind of intervention that we prefer. It doesn’t address structural problems,” he admitted, but in a later email, he added “we Cluster members are convinced that last year’s intervention had a solid ground and reason to be, and that the overall impact was positive.”
And he insisted that the 2011 distribution, which is smaller than 2010, was also important.
When Sperling learned the Cluster was continuing the distributions into 2011, she made this general statement about seed distributions, via email:
Direct seed aid – when not needed , and given repetitively – does real harm. It undermines local systems, creates dependencies and stifles real commercial sector development.
Sperling didn’t hesitate to identify one of motors of what she called “unneeded aid,” saying that some humanitarian actors “seem to see delivering seed aid as easy and they welcome the overhead (money) – even if their actions may hurt poor farmers.”
But Del Re also pointed out that the FAO and many other actors – like ACDI-VOCA and WINNER – are involved in agricultural development (as opposed to emergency) projects, too, such as helping develop “quality” or “improved” seeds.
In fact, the FAO has also recently requested funding for a new $5 million program that would include financial and technical support for quality seed multiplication efforts. The request is part of the Agriculture Cluster’s total of request for $43,087,517 for 22 projects for 2011.
But seed distribution in the spring of 2011 was more than a request – it is already part of the program.
ACDI-VOCA’s deputy director, agronomist Mathieu Lucien, agrees with Sperling. In an email, he told Haiti Grassroots Watch: “distributions every year is not the solution. In [spring, 2010], it was important to quickly boost production of food on a broader level… [but a] quick switch to a longer term approach should quickly follow.”
Part 4 of 5
Read Part 5 - Seeds in Haiti - Who is in charge?
See also Monsanto in Haiti
Go to Seeding Reconstruction or Destruction? summary and the video
