![\"haiti\"](\"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/haiti.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWorld Vision received 4,275 MT for FY2012 and approximately 3,830 MT for FY2013, which ended on September 30. The U.S.-based agency also received almost US$80 million for the grant, to which they added some of their own funding. The program cost over US$90 million for 2008-2012 and was extended for one year. (HGW could not find the cost of the additional year.)<\/p>\n
World Vision\u2019s food distribution programs on La Gon\u00e2ve, the Central Plateau, and parts of the Artibonite province cost about US$4.5 million per year, according to the agency\u2019s communications officer Jean-Wickens M\u00e9ron\u00e9.<\/p>\n
According to a World Vision evaluation of its own work, published in 2012, the food aid has had positive effects. During the first three years of the MYAP, the internal report says, the amount of \u201cstunting\u201d dropped for children aged six to 59 months went from 23.5% to 6%.<\/p>\n
Food aid is \u201cmore negative than positive\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
Some in and around Savanette are undernourished. In the last two years of FEWSNET reports, the Savanette region is pretty consistently considered \u201cstressed,\u201d which is #2 on a scale of #1 to #5, #1 being \u201cno food insecurity\u201d and #5 being \u201ccatastrophe\/famine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is hunger here,\u201d agronomist Jeune noted. \u201cThe distribution of food is not in and of itself a problem. It has a small positive impact, but when you investigate, you see that it is more negative than positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Jeune, farmers and residents of Savanette have many questions about the program, which comes on of decades of food aid.<\/p>\n
In addition to the real or perceived pregnancy increase, HGW also discovered that farmers and agronomists are convinced food aid has helped create a culture of dependence, discouraging people from working all of their plots and planting formerly important grains like sorghum. It has also encouraged consumers to buy imported rice rather than buy or grow sorghum, corn, and other crops, as in the past.<\/p>\n
Even beneficiaries raised questions about the program. In the fall of 2012, HGW journalists queried 25 beneficiary families. All of them said they had land and were farmers. Two-thirds said that \u2013 given the option \u2013 they would prefer to receive seeds to food aid. (Some beneficiaries said they did receive a one-time donation of vegetable seeds.)<\/p>\n
Merilus Derius, 71, said he thinks the younger generations do seem to want to farm, and he added that they not value some the foods he grew up eating.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are neglecting their fields!\u201d the farmer told HGW. \u201cBefore, we used to be able to live off our land.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Derius admitted that environmental degradation and other factors have contributed to decreased agricultural output he also blamed the invasion of food aid and cheap foreign food, which people buy instead of local products.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we have this food called \u2018rice husks.\u2019 In the Dominican Republic, they give it to animals. In Haiti, people eat it! But before, farmers grew sorghum and ground it. They grew Congo peas, planted potatoes, planted manioc. On a morning like this, a farmer would make his coffee and then \u2013 using a thing called \u2018top-top,\u2019 a little mill \u2013 he would crush sugar cane and boil the sugar cane water, and eat cassava bread, and he would have good health!\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you lived off your garden, you were independent\u2026 But when your stomach depends on someone else, you are not independent.\u201d<\/p>\n
World Vision does not believe its program creates dependency because most of the program is concerned with helping farmers improve their production.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a program that encourages resiliency and independence, after a certain period,\u201d World Vision\u2019s Director of Operations, Lionel Isaac, told HGW.<\/p>\n
Indeed, it would be unfair to blame the World Vision program for all of Savanette\u2019s woes. Jeune, other agronomists, and farmers like Derius hope that the plethora of recently announced government and foreign agricultural projects will help their region, which is capable of producing sorghum, corn, many kinds of vegetables and fruits, tubers, and livestock products like milk. The area has a lot of potential, Jeune said, but archaic farming methods, with few or no agricultural inputs, keep it from being self-sufficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the communes produce food,\u201d Jeune noted. \u201cIf farmers had technical assistance, they would make more money and the quality would improve also.\u201d<\/p>\n
Questions About a Food Distribution<\/b><\/p>\n
On March 18, 2013, HGW journalists observed a food distribution that raised questions about how beneficiaries are treated.<\/p>\n
Food was handed out to people who had stood in line for many hours, sometimes to groups who would divide it up. Journalists witnessed shoving and even fighting, as well as older women sitting on the ground, picking individual lentil beans.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a lot of distributions, you see pushing,\u201d Jeune told HGW. \u201cOld people are sometimes hurt. Even if food is being handed out, basic principals should be respected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Questioned in 2012, about one-third of 25 beneficiaries said they had been mistreated during food distributions.<\/p>\n
World Vision workers did not want HGW to videotape the March 18 distribution where \u2013 at the end of the distribution \u2013 some food had not been handed out.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t film here!\u201d one of the men yelled, shoving the journalists. Along with others, he tried to force journalists to turn off their camera and leave.<\/p>\n
Members of the community radio station and other bystanders protected the journalists, who were eventually allowed to continue their work. World Vision officials in the capital later apologized for the attack, saying they had disciplined the employees.<\/p>\n
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Haiti Grassroots Watch<\/i> is a collaboration of two Haitian organizations, Groupe Medialternatif\/Alterpresse and the Society for the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS), along with students from the Faculty of Human Sciences at the State University of Haiti and members of two networks \u2013 the network of women community radio broadcasters (REFRAKA) and the Association of Haitian Community Media (AMEKA), which is comprised of community radio stations located across the country. This series produced by HGW is distributed in collaboration with\u00a0Haiti Libert\u00e9.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n