Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to Haiti

This FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission special report assesses Haiti's 2017 crop and food security situation. The mission, supported by MARNDR, CNSA and FEWS NET, visited 70 of Haiti's 140 communes across all ten departments from 2 to 26 August 2017. It reviewed the socioeconomic setting, market conditions and prices, staple food baskets, rainfall patterns, input access, farmer expectations, production forecasts, domestic food availability, import requirements and food-security needs. The report finds that the 2017 spring season was shaped by abnormal rainfall distribution: early and abundant rains affected pulses, followed by a prolonged dry period and below-average June rainfall that affected maize yields.

Domestic food availability was forecast at 550,000 tonnes in maize-equivalent terms, 3.5 percent below 2016 and almost 6 percent below the 2014-2016 average, while cereal production for 2017 was expected to be about 8 percent below 2016 but above the El Niño-affected 2014-2016 average. Cereal import requirements for the 2017/18 marketing year were forecast at 703,000 tonnes, about 19 to 20 percent above 2016. The report concludes that targeted assistance remained necessary, especially where livelihoods and housing had not recovered after Hurricane Matthew.