Original article appeared on Le Nouvelliste on Thursday May 19th 2022
The social enterprise Accesso, the Haitian Center for Leadership and Excellence (CLE) and several other organizations working for the vast majority in rural Haiti launched, on Monday, May 16, 2022 in Port-au-Prince, the Alliance for local food systems in Haiti ((Hatian Food System Alliance (HFSA)). The objective of this structure is to achieve a neck-to-neck in order to strengthen local production and improve working conditions agricultural producers.
They were dozens of farmers, researchers and organization leaders to participate in the launch of the Alliance for local food systems in Haiti (HFSA). Agricultural development, the challenges, strengths and weaknesses of this sector were at the center of the debates during this ceremony. The associations present explained what they intend to contribute in order to achieve its objectives. Bringing together partners scattered in the different geographical departments of the country in various fields, this alliance aims to do everything possible for a better articulation of the actions undertaken in the agricultural sector.
Six organizations and companies are behind this initiative. For now, 14 organizations have already joined and each of them says they are committed to bringing added value. With such a structure, according to Patrick Dann Dorzin, Executive Director of Accesso, we will have the possibility of working together in various fields in order to give better results, avoid duplication and waste of resources. The idea, continues Max Prosper Fortuna, the head of the Haitian Center for Leadership and Excellence, is to have positive impacts on agricultural production in order to meet consumer demand which continues to grow and at the same time guarantee an acceptable income to farmers.
This structure is interested in the entire value chain of the sector. The wish of the supporters of this alliance is to achieve a fundamental change in the life of families and communities in rural areas. To achieve this, specific actions must be taken. Thus, it is a question of increasing the income of 3,000 small farmers and creating a hundred rewarding jobs in rural food systems with the aim of supplying more than 8,000 schoolchildren with locally produced foodstuffs and enabling 3,000 smallholder farmers to have access to specific weather forecasts for their plots and information on best practices in order to increase their productivity.
Alliance members are confident that continued growth, expansion and building partnerships with other organizations will increase the impact of the Alliance and its overall sustainability. Taking part in this activity, the founder of Accesso, Franck Giustra, did not fail to emphasize the importance of such a structure. The latter, he explains, is likely to help the Haitian rural environment through the agricultural value chain to contribute to job creation and guarantee the food security of the population. “We have an obligation to succeed and no effort will be spared to achieve it,” he said.
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