Haitian Development: A Case for Rice

In 1994, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, former president of Haiti, agreed to dismantle protective trade barriers when Washington restored him to political power after the military coup in 1991, and in 1995 Haiti signed a trade agreement to reduced its tariffs on rice imports from 35 percent to 3 percent, the lowest in the region (the Dominican Republic still has a 40% tariff on rice imports). In exchange for this service and necessary loans, the World Bank and IMF also forbade Haiti from subsidizing local rice farmers, to encourage the Haitian rice industry to be sustainable on the open market without the support of government aid.

Hypocritically, the United States government heavily subsidizes its own rice farmers, and according to a recent Oxfam report, the US subsidy in 2005 amounted to $1.3 billion of the $1.8 billion required to grow the rice, amounting to 72% subsidization. Between 2000 and 2003, it cost on average $415 to grow and mill one ton of white rice in the US. But US rice was dumped on export markets for only $274 per ton, 34 percent below the cost of production. Rice has traditionally been one of Haiti’s main substance crops, yet today 3 of 4 servings of rice eaten in Haiti are from US subsidized rice. This situation is costing both the American tax-payer and the average Haitian, with few reaping any benefits. Read more in A grain of hope exists: Rice, Haiti’s once and future cash crop, is the key to its economic turnaround.