PORT-AU-PRINCE, Sep. 4 (IPS) – Intensive, short-term job programs, launched last year to speed up democratic development, in Haiti have and actually set back agricultural production in Haiti, according to agronomists.

‘’In the middle of planting season, a large number of peasant farmers in the northeastern town of Vallieres abandoned their land to begin working in the areas with one of these projects,’’ said agronomist Harry Noel, citing one example of what he says is a nationwide tendency.

Other agronomists say that the poorly conceived and executed job programs have disrupted the delicate economic balance in Haiti’s countryside, home to some 70 percent of the population. Not only are peasant farmers deserting the land during growing season, but long-term sustainable development programs in the countryside are also suffering!

International development agencies launched the short-term, labor- intensive job programs, focused mostly on road construction, late last year. They provided a sugar-coating for the presence of thousands of U.S.-led troops who landed last September to oust Haiti’s ruling military leaders and allow the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

‘’The (job creation) programs provide hope that democracy will bring tangible benefits and demonstrates that change is real,’’ noted a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) news release earlier this year.

Unemployment in Haiti stands at around 50 percent and USAID targeted 50,000 people per day for their own job programs, which are supplemented by European Union (EU) and the World Bank programs.

World Bank President James Wolfensohn announced a USD50 million job program on a visit to Haiti in July.

For the average haitian peasant, short-term employment offered relief from a hard rural life which is getting harder. Most peasant farmers produce for themselves and for local markets, and high costs for transportation and storage eat into returns. Thus, the daily wage of 36 gourdes (USD2.40) offered by international agencies – the legal minimum wage – is proving attractive.

Volny Paultre, agronomist and consultant to the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), told IPS that the job programs should have been better designed. At the very least, he said that the government who could have recommended the best times to launch them and avoided the planting season which runs from January to March and July to August each year.

But the impact of the job programs go beyond a missed planting season or harvest. For instance, in the rice fields of the Artibonite Valley, Haiti’s fertile ‘’bread basket,’’ Paultre reports that revenues from levies on irrigation pumps were down because of desertions to the job programs.

‘’Efforts over the years to create communally-managed irrigation systems have failed in just one season because of the job programs,’’ Paultre said.

Philippe Mathieu, a technical specialist with the Ministry of Agriculture, said, however, the government welcomed the influx of money through the employment schemes which would help alleviate the liquidity crisis caused by the three year coup regime.

But Mathieu added that the government was looking to replace the short-term jobs with sustainable activities and by providing nearly one million dollars in credit. (END/IPS/dc/mk/95)

Origin: Amsterdam/HAITI-DEVELOPMENT/ ----

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