Why Haiti's food system is so hard to fix

LES CAYES, Haiti — When a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on Aug. 14, tens of thousands of people in the southern peninsula saw their homes destroyed or damaged. Regular economic and agricultural activity was disrupted, leaving an estimated 650,000 people in need of emergency humanitarian assistance, including food.

Relief organizations sprang into action to feed people in hard-hit areas. Hope for Haiti, a U.S.-based nonprofit, collected shelf-stable products such as rice, beans, and cooking oil. It intended to package the items and get them as quickly as possible to the families still vulnerable more than a month after the earthquake.

But weeks later, the goods remained piled up at Hope for Haiti’s office in downtown Les Cayes, stored in a former conference room and under tarps outside. The bags that it needed to package the provisions had been delayed on the main route from Port-au-Prince to the country’s entire southern peninsula — a road that is routinely impassable due to soaring gang activity in an area called Martissant.

Even when not in the throes of natural disaster response, Haiti’s food system — from farmers’ production and transport to markets and consumption — is chronically strained.

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