The Rice Value Chain in Haiti: Policy Proposal
- Rice protection was cut from 50 percent to 3 percent in 1995, and imports rose from 269,000 tonnes in 2003 to 381,212 tonnes in 2010.
- The Dominican Republic applies about 20 percent on rice imports and CARICOM members average 38 percent.
- US subsidies and domestic support reached US$434 million in 2009, and Haiti takes 12 percent of US rice exports, the second largest market.
- At least two thirds of the crop comes from the Artibonite Valley, with 35,000 hectares irrigated.
- Rice production value is US$22.4 million, eleventh among crops, while agriculture is about 23 percent of GDP and more than half of employment.
- Modeling points to productivity gains and price stabilization over tariff changes.
Written by Carlos Furche for Oxfam America and dated July 30, 2012, this paper pairs a diagnosis of the Haitian rice value chain with a policy proposal, prepared as part of Oxfam America's engagement supporting small rice producers in the Artibonite Valley. Its method combines secondary data and documentary review with fieldwork in Haiti, including interviews with local authorities and Haitian agricultural professionals and experts, and a visit to the Artibonite Valley to meet farmers, local chain actors, public-sector staff and NGOs working in the region; the author credits Luc Saint Ville and Paul Duret for making that access possible. It is one of the three 2012 rice documents in this collection, alongside MARNDR's national recovery program and the IICA/SYFAAH chain study, and it is the one that argues an explicit policy position from outside government.
How to cite
Oxfam America, 2012, The Rice Value Chain in Haiti: Policy Proposal, https://agripubhaiti.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/The-Rice-value-Chain-in-Haiti-Rice-Policy-Proposal.doc