Posted on 04/23/2016 8:53:00 PM PDT by huldah1776
MIREBALAIS, Haiti – The barefoot farmer oversees three teenage workers as they attack weeds with spades in a sunbaked field of peanut plants, a vital cash crop often grown on Haiti's marginal farmland.
If he's lucky, Francois Merilus will reap a meager harvest amid a lengthy drought that has shriveled yields and worsened Haiti's chronic hunger. Now the subsistence farmer is dismayed by what he believes could be the latest challenge to his ability to eke out a living: free peanuts arriving from the U.S. as humanitarian aid.
"Foreign peanuts can only make things harder for us," said Merilus, whose organic farm in central Haiti is plowed by oxen and maintained without pesticides or chemical fertilizers only because he could never dream of affording them.
A recently announced plan to ship 500 metric tons of surplus American peanuts to help feed 140,000 malnourished schoolchildren in Haiti has set off a fierce debate over whether such food aid is a humanitarian necessity or a counterproductive gesture.
Critics say agricultural surplus aid and heavily subsidized food imports do more harm than good by undercutting local farmers and pushing the hemisphere's poorest nation farther from self-sufficiency.
"This program does nothing to boost capacity in Haiti and does nothing to address consistent food insecurity," said Oxfam America senior researcher Marc Cohen.
While an online petition is circulating calling for President Barack Obama's administration to stop surplus "dumping" on Haiti, the U.S. government and the U.N. food agency are defending the aid program, which they say represents only 1.4 percent of Haiti's average annual peanut production.
They say critics don't take into account how dismal Haitian harvests have been and how badly struggling children need more nutrition. As many as 30 percent of Haitian youngsters suffer from chronic malnutrition...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
What I’ve been saying all along. Our approach to aiding Haiti has killed off their economy, who can compete with free food, or free doctors?
“For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!”
We’re turning them into another welfare satellite.
Precisely. Just like foodstamps and obamaphones here, the “aid” to these poor countries make the recipients lazy and their leaders corrupt. Free stuff are poison.
Teach a man how to fish, not give fish scales to the leaders.
After all, the Louisiana cane farmers need their sugar price support, so stop wasting our tax dollars on starving Haitians.
Sticky, sweet S/
That, FRiend, is an illuminating article.
Wow.
As someone earlier posted, “give a man a fish...”
FReepers, check out the Gator’s link.
(Oh, have we been saying since LBJ’s time?)
“We’re turning them into another welfare satellite.”
Exactly. What is WRONG with our Government? We don’t INVADE other countries and take their resources and treasure...but we turn them into welfare states that We The People get to support!
*Head Explodes*
Dominican Republic is on the same island. They’re doing okay.
“..We’re turning them into another welfare satellite..”
Deja Vu Puerto Rico...
A more vile self-hating black cannot be imagined. He implicitly criticizes the great Lord Obama, and deserves round condemnation for attempting to move a whole continent outside of the borders of the liberal plantation. Disgusting!
Thank you. It’s been awhile since I’ve read that article. “Quit sending us your crap Goodwill clothing!”
-—Exactly. What is WRONG with our Government?
.
.
.
There is a lot of money skimmed of charity.
Ask the Clinton-Foundation.
SOLVING poverty is not the solution that some people seek. It would end their own gravy train.
I read some time ago about aid to Africa, and back (I think in the late 80’s), it was estimated that every living person in Kenya could have received around $400,000 USD if the aid had gone directly to them.
Look at all the money we pissed into Iraq. We could have probably rebuilt 1 out of every 100 schools here in the US and put a new hospital in every state.
Luckily, the muslims went and burned everything down that we built... so now we can do it again when another Neo Con gets elected.
Same thing happened to the budding garment industry in West Africa. American donations of free clothing put them out of business.
I was in Haiti for a week in February and was amazed at all the bags of American rice for sale, and the sheer volume of donated clothes and shoes for sale. I remarked at the time that at least it creates an economy of some sort, if they’re reselling the same items 10 times and it all just circulates around the country...
I’m sure he’ll report to the local block captain and soviet to denounce himself and his evil deeds right after his factory shift.
(some good Cold War socialist stuff for you younger FReepers! Just like Bernie and Hill-zilla would like to see)
Do some research on what a “soviet” is and then check out “self-denunciation”.
Mississippi,
My comment wasn’t directed at you, it was a general statement.
If it’s actually only 1.4% of their peanut production, I can’t see how that would bother the economy or peanut farming.
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