Agricultural Sector Recovery Policy
- Names the fertilizer market structure as a price problem rather than a supply one: the chain runs through three importing firms sourcing from two Dominican manufacturers, FERSAN and FERQUIDO, then wholesalers, shopkeepers and retailers, and the policy attributes high prices to that near-monopoly and to the multiplication of intermediaries as much as to world markets.
- Records field fertilizer prices reaching 1,250 gourdes per 100-pound sack in March 2008 with very low availability in the consuming zones, naming the Artibonite valley, the market-gardening periphery of Port-au-Prince (Kenscoff, Furcy, Plaine du Cul-de-Sac) and the irrigated part of the Les Cayes plain.
- Attributes the world price level to rising oil prices and Asian fertilizer demand, so the domestic shock is traced through an identified transmission channel rather than asserted.
- Sets out rural credit demand by segment, enterprises needing substantial funds mainly for export activity, cooperatives and producer groups sometimes backed by NGOs, and households needing relatively small sums, which is why a single credit instrument does not fit the sector.
- Structures the diagnosis around a SWOT matrix before the value-chain analysis, covering extension and agricultural research and training, input supply, rural credit and producer organization.
- Covers 2008 to 2020, so it is the policy frame against which the sector's later programmes, including the rice and extension plans, should be read.
Prepared by MARNDR with FAO and dated May 2008, this policy sets a twelve-year horizon for the recovery of Haitian agriculture. It begins with a strategic diagnosis: the structural data and socio-economic context, the state of the agricultural and rural sector, and a strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats matrix. It then examines the support services and the organization of the rural milieu, covering agricultural extension, research and training, and the supply of agricultural inputs. Because it was issued in the year of the food-price crisis and immediately before the DSNCRP took effect, it is the policy statement against which the sub-sector programs MARNDR produced in 2009 and 2010 - aquaculture, maritime fisheries, milk, livestock for environmental rehabilitation - should be read. The copy held is labelled a draft.
How to cite
Government of Haiti; Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR); Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 2008, Agricultural Sector Recovery Policy, https://agripubhaiti.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Politique-de-relance-du-secteur-agricole-draft0.doc