Haiti - FLASH : The Artibonite Valley hostage of armed groups
Agriculture in the Artibonite Valley has become hostage of armed groups that prevent any growth and investment in the agricultural sector.
It should be remembered that agriculture in the Artibonite Valley is already subject to a multitude of constraints, favoring an irrational exploitation of the agricultural potential of this region. Faced with these constraints, the main rice-growing area of Haiti (28,000 ha, 100,000 tons of rice/year, 20% of national consumption) is in decline and the loss of employment and income is constantly increasing...
In addition to its rice production and its broader agricultural dimension, the Artibonite Valley also has considerable political weight with 57% of the electorate concentrated in 9 communes of the department (Saint Marc, Dessalines, Desdunes, Grande Saline, Petite Rivière de l'Artibonite, l'Estère, la Chapelle, Verrettes and Liancourt) which makes the valley a strategic region for candidates seeking political control of the department. The use of armed men is one of the means to appropriate the electorate and maintain their political force in the region. Armed men who have become more and more demanding and who continue to appropriate territories where they steal, rape, burn and kill with impunity.
Rising food insecurity, fuel crises and armed gang activity in the valley are only accelerating the decline of the living conditions of its inhabitants.
All these constraints and the abandonment of police stations by the police officers in the valley are increasingly pushing the main actors in the agricultural sector to flee the valley and the peasants to abandon agriculture in favor of migration to other countries.
