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After the earthquake in 2010 many residents of Port au
Prince had to leave their destroyed houses and moved to these hillsides to
build temporary homes.
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Haiti is the poorest country of the Caribbean, the Americas, and stands
at the 20th poorest country in the world according to IMF reports
from years 2009-2013. This fact has been
compounded by a history of political coup d’etats and natural disasters that
have prevented the Haitian economy from developing. Today, an estimated 78% of Haitians survive
on less than $2 a day and more than half of the population live in extreme
poverty on less than $1 a day (Ministry of Planning; 2007). The majority of those living
in extreme poverty live in the rural parts of the country as subsistence
farmers, although most farmers are often unable to provide sufficient food to
feed their families. Food insecurity is
a critical challenge that Haiti continues to face. The country’s food system is unable to
sustain itself and its dependency on imported food has increased from 19% in
1981 to 51% in 2003 and 2005.
Most recently, the earthquake of January 12th,
2010 damaged Haiti’s already struggling economy with major hits going to food
security and agricultural capabilities.
The earthquake’s proximity to the urban and suburban regions of the
country forced many Haitians to move out to rural areas: an estimated 600,000
people migrated out of Port-au-Prince.
This caused the already struggling rural population to take in family
members, thus increasing the size of an average household from 5-6 individuals
to 10, nearly doubling the number of mouths to feed. The sudden need for food caused food prices
to rise at this time, but the mostly subsistence, small-scale farmers had
neither the product quantity nor the resources to boost production and take
advantage of the market opportunity.
Furthermore, many small-scale livestock owners were forced to sell their
valuable animals in order to generate funds to repair houses, infrastructure,
and replace lost property.
This natural disaster is the most recent highlight of the necessity to
strengthen the agriculture sector in Haiti in order to relieve the growing food
and economic insecurity.
Post-earthquake, in 2010 the Ministry of Planning and External
Cooperation (MPCPEC) developed the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy
(DSNCRP) addressing the catastrophic environment the natural disaster had left
the country in and defining objectives and action steps for recovery. A key tenant of the DSNCRP is to improve
“agriculture and rural development”. To
meet Haiti’s short and long-term food needs, a main emphasis is on developing
the “research, training, extension services, small farmer organizations, and
cooperation platforms” in the country (Ministry of Agriculture; 2010).
The
Project
To meet these goals, in July of 2013 UC Davis was contracted by Haiti’s
Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Rural Development (MARNDR) and
USDA to deliver teacher-training in curriculum development for the
reestablishment of vocational agriculture schools (Ecoles Moyennes
d’Agriculture – EMA) in Haiti as part of the Vocational Agricultural
Education. These schools will meet a
critical human resource gap for mid-level extension service, research
technicians, and entrepreneurs.
Programmed to open in October of 2015, the UC Davis Advisory team and
the EMA staff are in their last push to complete a dynamic and experiential
curriculum that will cover topics including animal production, crop production,
natural resource management, food transformation, and rural community
development. 12 EMA teachers, or agroformateurs
(AGFs) have been hired and received training in the experiential learning
approach.
To enhance this curriculum, they have now requested the expertise of UC
Davis graduate students specializing in these fields. That’s where we, Angela and Kelly, come
in.
Enticed
by the opportunity to collaborate with Haitian teachers, we applied for and
received a BLUM PASS travel grant enabling us to participate in the 2015 Summer
Curriculum Development training. Both
International Agriculture Development graduate students, we focus our studies
on animal husbandry with an interest in providing economic and nutritional
opportunities for farmers while keeping a keen eye on animal welfare. In this training, we will focus specifically
on integrated goat management.
Why goats? Well, we are strong
believers in the potential that goats offer the world of animal production;
goats are the future, as they say (do they say that yet? We’re trying to get it going!). Goats are an attractive option because of
their production potential in the local management systems and the environment. Goats are an efficient producer of highly
nutritious food, have strong economic potential for small-scale farmers, and
can positively influence the environment when properly managed. Their small size provides multiple benefits
for subsistence farmers in rural areas.
Compared to cattle, goats reach maturity quickly and they often have
twins. They have a gestation period of
150 days, allowing for two parturitions per year, and reach market weight
within their first year. This ensures a
quicker turnover rate for farmers raising goats for meat. As they are a less expensive to buy and care
for, goats are also a less risky investment (Winrock; 1983).
Their size also makes them easier to manage. Teaching future extension agents to work with
goats will provide them with options to work with women and youth, both
individually and in groups. They are
ideally incorporable into mixed farms, demanding minimal materials and equipment. Furthermore, in rural areas where
refrigeration is often not readily available, their smaller yield size of milk
means there is less concern for spoilage.
Today in Haiti goats are commonly owned by subsistence
farmers (Eyma; 2010). Improving production
must therefore center on integrating current management systems with new
technology and methods. Most of all, we
are excited to meet the AGFs at the EMA in Dondon and learn about current
practices to better understand the opportunities and challenges in goat
husbandry here in Haiti. We look forward
to working with the AGFs who are eager to incorporate integrated goat management
into the EMA curriculum. Just as we
believe in goats, we also believe in the value of experiential learning and
finding ways to make education practical and comprehensible. We will work with the AGFs to generate
hands-on activities that they will use with the future students. These future students, we hope, will become
the next extension agents, entrepreneurs, and model farmers for Haiti, a
country that badly needs these roles to be filled.
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