Agroforestry techniques to relief food insufficiency in Haiti

Introduction

Haiti forest area has been reduced to 3.2% of the territory to get arable land and pastures and to get fuelwood. Soil erosion is a main problem. Agriculture is the dominant activity commonly for self-subsistence. Small tree plantations include coffee, bananas, cocoa and sone coconut. Food crops are cereals (maize, sorghum and rice), legumes (in particular Cayanus cayan), root plants (manioc, yam, sweet potato) and fruit (banana, mango, annona, citrus) and sugarcane (FAO/PAM, 2004FAO/PAM. (2004). Rapport spécial mission FAO/PAM d’évaluation des récoltes et des disponibilités alimentaires en Haïti.).

Differently from other Latin American and Caribbean Countries, Haiti does not have has not agricultural "traditions" properly linked to the territory, because the indigenous population was almost exterminated already in the 1600s. Mixed homeyards are agroforestry systems as a matter of fact, in the study area three kinds are easily recognized: “devant porte kaye” (500-1000 m², dense planted vegetation including trees around the house); the "pre kaye" (1000-5000 m², an area without trees, fenced with live hedges, and the "loin kaye" (> 5000 m², usually further from the house). These areas contribute much to the overall food production and supply to urban markets (Temple et al., 2014Temple, L., Boyer, J., Briend, A., & Daméus, A. (2014). Les conditions socio-économiques de l’innovation agro-écologique pour la sécurisation alimentaire dans les jardins agroforestiers en Haïti. Field Actions Science Reports. The Journal of Field Actions, Special Issue 9, Article Special Issue 9. https://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/2817).

Currently, food represents 64.3% of expenses of rural families (2.7% is for education and 3.2% for health). Food insecurity and poverty affect about 48% of the population (3.8 million people). The cost of fixed-price food has doubled from 1980 to 1990 and quintupled from 1991 to 2000 (FAO/PAM, 2004FAO/PAM. (2004). Rapport spécial mission FAO/PAM d’évaluation des récoltes et des disponibilités alimentaires en Haïti.). The earthquake of 2010 has enhanced the low food production and heavily stressed the internal trade. Food security can be improved also by increasing urban and periurban food production (Pardini & Massolino, 2019Pardini, A., & Massolino, F. (2019). Urban Agriculture as part of food security and community resilience (Aracne Publ.).), crops diversification and intercropping with multipurpose trees is considered a priority (Murray & Bannister, 2004Murray, G. F., & Bannister, M. E. (2004). Peasants, agroforesters, and anthropologists: A 20-year venture in income-generating trees and hedgerows in Haiti. Agroforestry Systems, 61(1), 383-397. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:AGFO.0000029012.28818.0c).

Our research was part of a development project funded by EU as part of the B 7-201 Securité alimentaire sector, and was aimed at improving food security in the municipality od Carrefour.

Materials and methods

The research was done in the Departement de l'Ouest (Province of Carrefour). The climate has 1500 mm of annual rainfall, a very dry season (December-March) and a very rainy one (April-November) with strong erosion. The area has no access roads, the communities are therefore extremely isolated and there is only subsistence agriculture.

The research was divided into three phases:

Two local NGOs, a cooperative of producers, local institutions and technicians, community facilitators and representatives of the rural population have been chosen as counterparts. The problems about agriculture and territory were identified by joint discussions, later a set of proposals for action were decided still with participatory approach.

Results and discussion

The emerged problems an be categorized in agronomical and social (Table 1), the problems of the first kind are perceived as more important by farmers, however also the second type is extremely important.

Seasonality of rainfall and soil erosion: notable weather events are common in the area, creating an excess of water in some periods of the year and insufficiency in other, obviously they increase erosion. Water will be collected in small ponds, starting water conservation and reducing erosion (progressive terraces, living barriers, mulching, tree planting). Regularization of the microclimate planting trees with large canopies.

Poor and irregular yields: the soil fertility has been reduced over years of deforestation and erosion; industrial fertilizers are too expensive for local farmers. A new increase in soil fertility is seek through organic fertilization (legumes) and mulching. Intercropping with fruit forage timber and multi-purpose trees in agroforestry systems. Crop diversification and rotations (cereals + grain legumes).

Further deforestation: unfortunately, deforestation is not finished yet. Farmers seek the reintroduction of multipurpose trees, but this is obstacle by the needs of energy and building materials. Reduction of fuelwood use can be achieved by spreading the use of solar ovens built locally, and the use of stones and clay bricks can be alternatives to wooden houses.

Lack of tree nurseries: tree plants are now sown directly, often with disappointing results. Five small irrigated nurseries were done. Seedlings of Avocado, Mango, Papaya was given for free to the farmers of the project. These community nurseries will be managed by existing agricultural cooperatives and rural associations.

Irrational livestock breeding and lack of veterinary system: uncontrolled livestock grazing is common use. Live fences have been built to start controlled grazing. Live hedges were done also with Opuntia ficus-indica that can be forage during drought, herbal medicine for rural families and food in the most extreme cases. At the moment there are no veterinary checks, 33 veterinarians were trained and 5 rural veterinary pharmacies has been started, a campaign of cattle vaccination has been started in all the municipal districts of Carrefour.

Poor agronomic skills and training: forty “promoter” farmers have been trained for the training and dissemination of skills two methods have been used: Campesino-campesino and Aprender haciendo. Every farmer trained by the project is committed to tech the learned skills to other farmers. Also starting agroforestry techniques on their land which become demonstrative plots.

Lack of access to capitals: an initial help to selected farmers was given delaying tree seedlings in plastic pots to be planted in their lands. The beneficiaries agreed to return them in a larger number within 5 years. This approach will be extended to eventual cases of weather damages, and allow the restart of activities that would otherwise be permanently lost.

Lack of legal recognition of farmers associations: most degraded land is found where land security is unstable. Rental contracts are not written or however they are given for just a few years. These two conditions make farmers not interested in reintroducing trees or making any improvement to the land. Furthermore, farmers organizations have no legal recognition and cannot support the requests, the legal support of farmers for the regularisation of medium-term leases (10-12 years) and sales contracts was therefore initiated.

Several agronomic solutions have been proposed (Table 2). Nonetheless of the technical interest of the agronomic solutions, the possible changes to social organization were more appreciated because of more rapid effects on farmers wealth than agronomic changes. The introduction of agroforestry techniques and all the agronomic practices related were very appreciated, but farmers referred the necessity to make the social changes before to favour its introduction, in particular they pointed out the necessity of written contracts of land tenure and the diffusion of agricultural knowledge farmr-to-farmer.

Conclusions

The research identified a number of basic problems, either agronomic or related to social organization. The local population has been actively integrated in the conduction of the initial surveys, thus reaching widely agreed assessments. Later on, farmers were involved also in the identification of possible solutions and in the actual start of interventions. Some of the problems resulted to be affordable with very low monetary input and therefore actually available to the local farmers.

In this way, the results of the research were guaranteed the possibility of actually spreading among the population.

In many cases changes to social organization were considered more important than agronomic aspects.

The identified social problems have been linked to land uncertainty that must be overcome in order to entice farmers to re-bring down tree plants that require long periods to become productive.

Concerning agronomic tools, many aspects considered are related to trees reintroduction and their intercropping in agroforestry or complex agro-silvo-pastoral systems.

Generally talking, local farmers are interested in any intervention that is affordable with little money and little knowledge, thus refusing as a matter of fact high input interventions. Under this point of view agroforestry looks a good set of practices to start gradual changes either social or related to the land.