We are reassured that
fleets of C13O cargo planes are on the way with essential supplies to feed the
hungry, mend the broken, and shelter the homeless, and that we have done our
part to dull if not cure the pain.
Eventually, the
bodies that litter the streets will be buried and over time the normalcy that
is Haitian poverty will return, unless we transform our international trade.
In the 1750’s Haiti
was responsible for more than 50 percent of the GNP of France. In 2009, Haiti’s total GDP was $6.95 Billion,
roughly 1 percent of the investment made in staving off a U.S. depression
through TARP spending. Haiti’s economy shrank 49 percent on a per-person basis
between 1980 and 2004, when GDP hit bottom at $402 per-person. The 2008 figure
was $410. According to the World Bank, 54 percent of Haitians earn less than $1
a day and 78 percent less than $2.
Agricultural subsidies
paid to growers in the U.S. and other developed nations are the primary cause
of Haiti’s poverty, which has been compounded by corruption, deforestation,
low-wage exploitation, and meddling with the food supply in the name of
progress. The global substitution of subsidized high-fructose corn syrup for
sugarcane annihilated Haitian sugarcane producers whose production costs were
three times the reduced market price, and exports dropped from 19,200 tons in
1980 to 6,500 tons in 1987. In the past decade, there have been years that Haiti
exported no sugar at all. Unable to compete with subsidized U.S., Columbian, and
Brazilian growers, coffee production slumped from 42,900 tons in 1980 to less
than 25,000 tons in 2005, devastating the more than 1 million Haitians who
participate in the industry as growers, marketers, or exporters. Haitian producers
of cacao, sisal, essential oils, cotton and even mangoes are similarly unable
to compete.
Poverty causes
unnatural disasters and makes of natural disasters the apocalypse – buildings
collapse because they are improperly built out of substandard materials; mud
slides because open-cast miners and people searching for fuel clear forests;
and those lucky enough to survive the initial shock may die as a consequence of
inadequate medical care.
So, as you reach into
your pockets to help Haiti (as we must), realize that you are not “giving” at all;
you are just paying the rest of the tab for the beans in your coffee, the high
fructose corn syrup in your soda, and the mangoes and soy protein in your power-juice.
For as surely as cheap
oil causes smog and cheap calories cause obesity, Haitian misery is a
consequence of our subsidized lifestyle. The solution for Haiti is, as it is
for the world, that we pay fair trade prices that reflect the real costs of
products once their environmental and social costs have been factored in.
Very well stated. Thank you very much for your perspective!
Posted by: mnewson | May 08, 2011 at 12:19 PM