Haiti farmers demand a say in $47.9M agriculture project

FORT-LIBERTÉ — Haitian farmers and rural leaders are pressing the government and international donors to give them a direct role in shaping a proposed $47.9 million agricultural investment in the country’s North and Northeast departments, arguing that local knowledge will help determine whether the money produces lasting results.

More than 70 agricultural and community organizations made the demand Aug. 29 at the Organization of Peoples Working for the Development of Haiti’s (OPODHA) seventh annual general assembly in Trou-du-Nord. The groups want farmers involved not only as beneficiaries but also in designing, implementing and monitoring the agricultural program, known as the HA-J0015 project.

The proposed five-year program, expected to begin in 2027, combines $38.7 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and $9.2 million from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), according to officials from Haiti’s Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR).

The investment aims to improve food security in rural areas of the North and Northeast by expanding sustainable irrigation, promoting climate-resilient agricultural technologies, and strengthening producer organizations and agrifood businesses.

For farmers, the investment comes as long-standing problems — particularly inadequate irrigation, weak rural infrastructure, limited access to credit and technical assistance, and difficulty reaching markets — continue to constrain production.

“The US$47.9 million must not become another missed opportunity for the country,” said Florcie Larèche Fervil, director of OPODHA.

The organizations’ demands grew out of a petition submitted in July to MARNDR, the IDB and IFAD. Based on a survey of 1,100 farmers in 74 rural communities, OPODHA identified 13 priorities, ranging from water management and irrigation to seed banks, agricultural training, rural credit, crop insurance, roads, storage and food processing.

In response, the Haitian government said some of those demands are already reflected in the project.

Odibert Cothière, MARNDR’s Northeast departmental director, told The Haitian Times that nine of the 13 priorities identified by farmers’ organizations have been incorporated into the HA-J0015 project.

“We met with OPODHA, and nine of the 13 priorities identified by the farmers’ organizations have been incorporated into the HA-J0015 project,” Cothière said on Aug. 29.

Cothière added that his discussions with OPODHA leaders focused on a central question surrounding the investment: whether rural communities will have meaningful influence over how the money is spent and whether projects are adapted to the conditions farmers face.

Farmers want more than aid

At the Trou-du-Nord assembly, farmers returned repeatedly to the same message: They want a role in decisions about agricultural investments in their communities.

“We feed the country. We must have a voice,” one participant said from the podium.

Fervil said the program’s effectiveness would depend not only on the amount of money invested but also on whether institutions work with farmers to develop solutions suited to local conditions.

“The success of the $47.9 million program will depend less on the amount invested than on the ability of institutions to listen to rural communities and work with them to develop solutions tailored to the realities on the ground,” she said.

The organizations say their position is informed by their experience with previous agricultural projects supported by international partners. They argue that some interventions have fallen short partly because local communities were not sufficiently involved in their design.

They are calling for farmers to participate in evaluating previous investments and monitoring new ones, saying greater involvement could improve accountability, local ownership and the relevance of projects to individual communities.

The IDB’s description of HA-J0015 also identifies producer organizations as part of the project’s objectives, including strengthening their management and financial capacity.

An irrigation gap in northern Haiti

Farmers’ focus on water is backed by agricultural data showing the scale of the region’s irrigation deficit.

According to Haiti’s 2008-2009 General Agricultural Census, the Northeast had 41,779 agricultural holdings totaling about 149,400 acres of useful agricultural area. Only 8,798 acres were irrigated then. After the irrigation canal was built on the Massacre River between 2023 and 2024, another 9,880 acres were added, bringing the department’s total irrigated farmland to 18,678 acres.  

Still, that is just over 12% of the region’s useful agricultural area.

Conditions in the North Department are similar, with an approximate useful agricultural area of 267,733 acres, the MARNDR survey indicated. 

The department’s potential irrigable land is estimated at 132,451 acres. However, available data show that only about 4.23% is irrigated. 

MARNDR conducted the census with technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and financial support from the European Union.

Though the data are more than a decade old, they illustrate a structural problem that farmers say remains unresolved: Access to water does not necessarily translate into access to irrigation, farmers lamented.

More than 90% of farmers surveyed by OPODHA rely on rain-fed agriculture, according to the organization.

“We are entirely dependent on rainfall, even though streams flow past our land,” said Pastor Daniel Sidalme, president of the Organization of Peoples Working for the Development of the North.

“Lacking irrigation systems, we cannot use this resource. That is why we are requesting support from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Islamic Development Bank,” he said.

Medely Joseph, president of the Organization for the Development of Garde Saline, said large areas of farmland remain unproductive because they lack irrigation.

“We have a lot of land that isn’t irrigated, which severely limits our production capacity,” Joseph said.

In Failleton, Guilène Antoine, head of the Konbit Agrikòl Failleton Organization, said farmers have water nearby but lack the infrastructure to move it to their fields.

“We have water, but the canals don’t allow us to transport it to the farmland,” she said.

Rehabilitating irrigation networks, she said, is among the most urgent investments needed to increase local production.

In Savane Carrée, Judson Norfeny, secretary general of the Savane-Carrée Development Organization, described an even more basic problem.

“For all our activities, we have to buy water. We hope that the program funded by the IDB will finally provide a lasting solution to this problem,” Norfeny said.

Land is available, but farmers lack support. What the $47.9 million would fund

Water is not the only concern. Some farmers say they have land available for cultivation but lack the technical assistance, equipment and financing needed to develop it.

In Saint-Louis-du-Nord, Saintilia Volmard, treasurer of a farmers’ organization affiliated with the movement, said farmers need guidance to develop their land.

“We have plenty of land. We want to work, but we don’t have the necessary guidance to carry out our projects,” she said.

Her concern reflects a broader demand among the organizations for more agronomists, training, equipment and financing — not simply infrastructure.

Under the HA-J0015 project, they hope the investment will improve irrigation and infrastructure, promote innovation, strengthen training, and support the production and marketing of agricultural products.

OPODHA leaders said that surveys conducted between 2024 and 2026 also showed similar priorities across rural communities. They are urging state officials and international financial partners to incorporate those community insights into future regional farming initiatives.

A broader test for agricultural investment

The petition submitted after the annual assembly puts the proposed investment into a larger debate over how Haiti approaches agricultural development.

For the farmers gathered in Trou-du-Nord, the question is bigger than whether the country is investing enough money in agriculture. It is whether the investment can produce lasting changes in communities that have struggled with limited irrigation, weak infrastructure, little technical support and difficulty getting crops to market.

One place to start, they say, is with consultations in individual communities before projects are designed, so investments reflect the conditions farmers face.

The organizations also want investments in soil restoration, reforestation, agricultural equipment banks, low-interest rural credit, agricultural insurance, rural roads, and storage and processing facilities.

Beyond irrigation, they want investments that help communities build the capacity to produce food locally, create income and retain more of the value generated by their crops.

“We no longer want to buy our food from the Dominican Republic when we have fertile land. What’s lacking is technical support,” Antoine said.

For Fervil, the central issue is whether institutions will treat rural organizations as partners in agricultural development.

“Organizations cannot replace the state, but they are tools to support it. That is why we encourage you to get more involved,” she said.

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