PORT-AU-PRINCE,
Haiti, Jan. 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The governments of Haiti and Vietnam
are demonstrating that South-South cooperation can lead to the fruitful
exchange of resources, technology and knowledge. A series of
significant agreements signed in late December 2012 provide the
framework for a novel form of long term cooperation that will allow
Haiti to address food security, one of its key challenges.
The government of Haiti
hopes that these agreements will enable Haiti to leapfrog development
stages as it attempts to create a resilient agricultural production
system. As 2013 rolled in, these agreements were already translating
into concrete positive benefits including lower prices for rice, Haiti's
key staple food.
According to Haitian
Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, "The principal goal of the agreements we
have signed with Vietnam is to find innovative ways to insure food
security for all of our citizens." Lamothe's strategic plan identifies
ways to mitigate the impact of natural disasters on Haiti's food supply
and to reduce its reliance on the import of agricultural products such
as rice. The Haitian government's goal is to achieve self-sufficiency in
the production of food.
The Vietnamese experience
is particularly relevant to Haiti which imports most of the rice its
citizens consume. In the past thirty years this small Southeast Asian
country has gone from facing periodic food shortages in the aftermath of
the war with the United State and being a net importer of rice, to
becoming the world's second largest exporter of rice.
Improvements came by
increasing land under cultivation, relying on technology to improve
seeds and mountain rice production techniques, and by depending on
smallholders rather than on large farming estates. In 2011 Vietnam
produced 40 million tons of rice a year, most of it grown on 7.2 million
hectares by some 10 million farming households each cultivating between
one half to one hectare.
Vietnam will provide
Haiti with technical cooperation to address the production of rice and
other agricultural products. It will send experts to help introduce a
progressive system of mountain rice production that includes the
mechanization of agriculture, soil erosion prevention techniques, and
the introduction of drought resistance rice varieties.
The agreements include a
few immediate benefits for Haiti. Vietnam will supply Haiti with 300,000
tons of rice annually, which will address periodic food shortages. As
part of the new relationship with Vietnam's Vietell, the state owned
mobile network company donated 400 tons of rice. As a result, Haitians
are welcoming 2013 with the price of rice 33 percent lower than last
year.
