Seeding reconstruction? series
Part 3 - Seed distribution: What do farmers and the SSSA recommend?
Posted March 30, 2011
Part 3 of 5
The Seed System Security Assessment/Haiti report, carried out in the spring and summer of 2010, concluded that Haitian farmers did not face a “seed emergency” after the earthquake, and that maybe no seeds should have been distributed. Instead, Haitian farmers had “financial constraints” and were facing “deeply chronic” seed problems they have always faced. [See part 2]
Rather than distribute seeds, the SSSA said that cash, or a seed voucher system (which a few but not all Cluster partners used), would have been more appropriate in most cases.
Haiti Grassroots Watch findings in the field – while anecdotal because they only come from four locations – confirmed the SSSA’s skepticism.
Ambroise Pierre, the Croix des Bouquets farmer with one carreau of land (much more than most farmers), didn’t host IDPs, and wasn’t necessarily vulnerable. While it is unclear if he got seeds via the US-funded WINNER program, or via the seed distribution (because WINNER refused numerous requests for an interview), the farmer did get subsidized seeds, but the experience was not a positive one. [See part 1]
In Bainet, on the South coast, there were few IDPs, but the US-based ACDI-VOCA organization – a member of the Agriculture Cluster – distributed bean seeds widely. However, the distribution came almost two months after the normal planting season, and many farmers in Chomèy, in the hills above Bainet, told Haiti Grassroots Watch that the plants produced no beans.
“It seems like the seeds the gave us are for plants that are used to growing on irrigated land,” farmer Joseph Maxo told Haiti Grassroots Watch.
“Next time, if another NGO that wants to help us they should contact us first and we can help them find a plant that grows well here. They thought they were giving a gift but they did more harm than good,” he added.
Asked about the Bainet distribution, ACDI-VOCA Country Director Emmet Murphy said that the bean seeds were appropriate to the region. In fact, in stark contrast to almost all the other seeds distributed in 2010, they were locally sourced.
In fact, ACDI-VOCA's distribution was late specifically because of its attempt to do only sustainable, capacity-building agricultural work. Unlike many or all of the humanitarian actors, ACDI-VOCA uses local seeds, which it “lends” to farmers, who are required to give back the same amount of seeds they sowed. The earthquake threw off the seed-multiplication schedule. There were also late spring rains which negatively affected yields throughout the southeast, he said.
“It’s a real shame that what occurred in Bainet would be compared to a plain old distribution,” he told Haiti Grassroots Watch. “We are very careful about how we work with the FAO. We are picky about what seeds and where.”
Indeed, ACDI-VOCA’s seed-lending process appears to be one of the more sustainable projects. It works with the MARDNR as much as possible, because “if you’re not working in coordination with the government, you shouldn’t be here.”
ACDI-VOCA assisted seed multiplication program.
But despite ACDI-VOCA’s good intentions, the end result in Chomèy was the same.
“What I would like to tell the NGOs it that, just because we are the poorest country doesn’t mean they should give us whatever, whenever,” disgruntled Chomèy farmer Jean Robert Cadichon told Haiti Grassroots Watch.
Farmers in Fondwa, in the mountains above Leogane, also reported getting seeds late.
Lionel Beauvais, a local official, told Haiti Grassroots Watch that the FAO distributed red and black bean seeds, although the ten sacks was not enough for the population. In addition, not everyone had a successful harvest. Some germinated and produced good yields, “others didn’t produce anything.”
Beauvais said he and other local officials didn’t request the seeds. They were just “made aware that seeds would be given.”
According to Beauvais, the seed distribution “was positive, because the tiny amount farmers received was useful, but there was also a negative side… the seeds came late and also, there weren’t enough. We couldn’t give everyone seeds. But everyone knew about it and was demanding them.”
A woman farmer gets seeds from an FAO worker as other farmers
watch. Source: FAO
Ernest Laguerre, who owns a store called Ti Kay Nou Peyizan Pwodui Agrikòl (Your Little Home Peasants’ Agricultural Products) in Kenscoff that sells supplies, fertilizer and seeds, told Haiti Grassroots Watch that the free or subsidized seed distributions and other aid programs affect his business.
"I would like to ask the NGOs to work with the seed distributors that are already here. We know the terrain, we could work for a better policy… All the NGOs, all the seed companies, we could all talk share ideas, and then we could come up with a plan to improve agriculture."
As in Croix des Bouquets, where Pierre’s “project corn” failed, in Bainet and Fondwa, farmers were pleased with the idea of free or nearly free seeds, but they also had criticisms.
These criticisms – while anecdotal – match the findings of the SSSA which advised that seed distribution in Haiti be at least “honed,” reminding:
1. Emergency seed aid should be used only to address emergency problems, and those in which seed security is a problem. Note that current farmer projections for August/September 2010 suggest that farmers can access the seed they need.
2. Any seeds made available to farmers through aid interventions have to be shown to a) be adapted to local conditions, b) fit well with farmers preferences, and c) be of a quality ‘at least as good’ as what farmers normally use.
2.1 One should never introduce varieties in an emergency context which have not been tested in the given agro-ecological site and under farmers’ management conditions.
[To see the rest of the recommendations, get the report here.]
Part 3 of 5
Did the seed distributions continue?
Why and what does the government National Seed Service think?
Read Part 4 - Seed distribution: a “mal nécessaire” (necessary bad thing)?
See also Monsanto in Haiti
Go to Seeding Reconstruction or Destruction? series and the video
