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Haiti Land Use and Farming Technology
It is difficult to understand the complex variations in
land
tenancy without an appreciation of land use and peasant
attitudes
toward land. More mountainous than Switzerland, Haiti has
a
limited amount of cultivable land. According to soil
surveys by
the United States Department of Agriculture in the early
1980s,
11.3 percent of the land was highly suitable for crops,
while
31.7 percent was suitable with some restrictions related
to
erosion, topography, or conservation. The surveys revealed
that
2.3 percent was mediocre because of poor drainage, but was
acceptable for rice cultivation, and 54.7 percent was
appropriate
only for tree crops or pastures because of severe erosion
or
steep slopes. According to estimates of land use in 1978,
42.2
percent of land was under constant or shifting
cultivation, 19.2
percent was pasture land, and 38.6 percent was not
cultivated.
The use of purchased inputs, such as fertilizers,
pesticides,
machinery, and irrigation, was rare; farmers in Haiti
employed
traditional agricultural practices more than did farmers
in any
other part of the Western Hemisphere. Although Haitian
farmers
used increased amounts of chemical fertilizers in the
1970s and
the 1980s, their use of an average of only seven kilograms
per
hectare ranked Haiti ahead of Bolivia, only, among Western
Hemisphere countries. Peasants applied mostly natural
fertilizers, such as manure, mulch, and bat guano. Large
landowners consumed most of the country's small amounts of
chemical fertilizers, and they benefited from subsidized
fertilizers imported from the Dominican Republic and mixed
in
Port-au-Prince. Five importers controlled the 400,000
kilograms
of pesticides that entered the country each year; malariacarrying mosquitoes and rodents in the rice fields were
the main
targets of pesticide application. Most rural cultivators
used
small hand tools, such as hoes, machetes, digging sticks,
and a
local machete-like tool called the serpette. There
was an
average of one tractor per 1,700 hectares; most farmers
considered such machinery inappropriate for use on tiny
plots
scattered along deeply graded hillsides. The insecurity of
land
tenure further discouraged the use of capital inputs.
The amount of irrigated crop land in the 1980s,
estimated at
between 70,000 and 110,00 hectares, was substantially less
than
the 140,000 hectares of colonial times. Of the nearly 130
irrigation systems in place, many lacked adequate
maintenance,
were clogged with silt, or provided irregular supplies to
their
80,000 users. By the 1980s, the irrigation network had
been
extended as far as was possible.
The minimal amount of research on agriculture and the
limited
number of extension officers that MARNDR provided gave
little
assistance to already low levels of farming technology.
Foreign
organizations, such as the Inter-American Institute for
Cooperation in Agriculture, carried out the most research.
Foreign organizations also provided more technical
assistance in
agriculture than the government.
Peasant attitudes and limited access to credit also
helped to
explain the traditional nature of farming. Most observers
blamed
agricultural underdevelopment on peasants' individualistic
nature, their proclivity toward superstition, and their
unwillingness to innovate
(see Social Structure
, ch. 7).
Small
farmers also lacked access to credit. Informal credit
markets
flourished, but credit was not always available at
planting time.
When credit was available, it was usually provided at
usurious
rates. The country's major public financial institutions
provided
loans to the agricultural sector, but this lending
benefited less
than 10 percent of all farmers. Major credit sources
included the
Agricultural Credit Bureau, agriculture credit societies,
credit
unions, cooperatives, and institutions created by
nongovernmental
organizations.
Data as of December 1989
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