Nearly five million Haitians are food insecure

The entity pointed out that the increase in the number of vulnerable people is linked to the depreciation of the national currency and the expansion of gang violence that limits economic activities in the urban area of ​​this capital and in the southern peninsula and in a large part of it. from the northern provinces.

In addition, the failure of the autumn and winter agricultural campaigns and the resurgence of the cholera epidemic play a role.

“Families are overwhelmed with severe food deficits, despite resorting to survival strategies,” he lamented, for example.

Among the most affected regions are the southern regions that suffered in 2021 from an earthquake of magnitude 7.2 on the Richter scale, as well as the northern and northeastern departments, Artibonite, the island of La Gonave and the three municipalities of Port-au-Prince, precisely the most dangerous.

The National Committee for Food Security said that despite the situation, the crisis in Cité Soleil, the largest slum in the country, had improved thanks to exceptional emergency food aid.

Currently, as a result of the severe crisis, the foundation indicated the need to take urgent measures to support 50 percent of the population in order to reduce the vulnerability of families.

At the beginning of the year, the Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, promised to support agriculture to reduce food insecurity, and acknowledged that it was the government’s responsibility to ensure that citizens found the foods that are part of their habits in sufficient quantities and at affordable prices for the population.

Henry asserted that this nation had the capacity to produce food and considered it counterproductive to import products that could be grown in the territory.

Jha / Ann