Agro-Economic Diagnosis of the Commune of Belladère
- Puts Belladere third in the Centre department for both population and density, at 292 inhabitants per square kilometer, with only 15 percent of people living in an urban space against 20 percent for the department and 52 percent nationally.
- Finds the census picture and the survey picture diverge sharply on occupation: IHSI 2015 has 89 percent of the population with agriculture as their main activity and 7.36 percent in commerce, while the study's own sample has 22 percent mainly doing farm work, 14 percent petty trade and 39 percent studying.
- Records holdings that are small but not minute: more than 55 percent have one or two parcels and more than 90 percent fewer than five, averaging 2.5 parcels and 1.36 carreaux (1.75 hectares), with 45 percent under one carreau.
- Reports direct owner operation on 80 percent of parcels, bought or inherited, and sharecropping on only 2.5 percent, with land conflict reported by fewer than 15 percent of producers and usually non-violent.
- Prices an eight-hour day of hired farm labor at 288 gourdes on average, ranging from 272 gourdes in January to 296 in March, with recurrent labor scarcity delaying field operations.
- Finds bananas, plantain and figue, the most profitable crops per unit area in both absolute and relative terms, and maize, cassava and pigeon pea the least, although these are among the commune's most important crops.
- Notes that 69 percent of surveyed holdings used no external financing in the previous twelve months despite ACME, FONKOZE, COOPDES and COPECLAS all being active locally, at interest of about 3 percent a month, or 36 percent a year.
Prepared by Roosevelt Saint-Dic for Groupe Trame SA under a UNDP tender to produce communal development plans for Belladère and Lascahobas, this report covers the Belladère commune and forms the agro-economic component of that commune's PCD. Its stated objective is a socio-economic study with particular emphasis on agro-economic aspects: production, product processing and marketing. The diagnosis records that Belladère has a relatively large population - the third largest in the Centre department after Hinche and Mirebalais, and third by density at 292 inhabitants per square kilometer - and that only 15 percent of its population lives in an urban area, against 20 percent for the Centre department and 52 percent nationally. As elsewhere in the country the population is young, with 43 percent under 18. It is an input to a communal development plan rather than the adopted plan itself, and the companion Lascahobas diagnosis is held alongside it.
How to cite
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); Groupe Trame SA, 2020, Agro-Economic Diagnosis of the Commune of Belladère, https://agripubhaiti.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Rapport-Diagnostic-agro-economique-de-la-Commune-de-Belladere-V1.doc