Haiti: Successive crises limit time for recovery of vulnerable farming households

UN Interviews

A series of crises is making it difficult for Haiti’s most vulnerable farming households to work their land, recover from natural weather events and build their livelihoods according to a senior representative of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Extreme weather, including hurricanes, as well as the effects of climate change and now rampant insecurity have dramatically impacted successive growing seasons leaving around five million Haitians hungry.

The Caribbean island nation of 11 million people is largely rural and agriculture employs about half of the workforce.

FAO’s director of emergencies, Rein Paulsen, has visited Haiti and spoke from the capital Port-au-Prince to UN News’ Daniel Dickinson at about a farming community he visited in Grande Anse in the southwest of the country.