Posted on 11/24/2023 1:29:17 PM PST by grundle
At first sight, the nearly four acres of farmland in this rural hamlet in northeast Haiti resembles more of a desert than a thriving agricultural experiment. The soil is brown and barren, battered by a lack of water and neglect.
But walk further inland and the seemingly lifeless terrain soon turns green: Cabbages and pumpkins rise out of the ground, papayas hang from trees and workers plant rows of hot peppers in the freshly plowed dirt as a generator hisses in the background.
A year ago, such a lush landscape was unimaginable for Fransik Monchèr, a farmer and father of seven who couldn’t even grow fiery habanero peppers because they quickly died.
All that changed the day a group of entrepreneurs decided to take a gamble to launch a socioeconomic experiment with the goal of answering a simple, but daunting question: What if a Haitian farmer, like Monchèr, had everything he needed to be a successful grower?
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
I support letting Haiti rot and serve as an example for what happens to blacks that kill whitey.
Gangs need to be dealt with in the same way they inspire terror and compliance to ordinary people.
Technology or money? This has the feel of subsidized EV's....
their problems are all internal, the DR doesn’t seem to have their problems...
My parents went on a honeymoon cruise of the. Caribbean. I have old pictures of my mother walking on a street in Port-au-Prince, with sympathetic look on her face as she looked at very skinny natives. And I bought a beautiful oil painting by some semi-famous Haitian painter at the Haitian art gallery in the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Worth quite a lot now.
When I lived in South Florida, those tall skinny Haitians were coming over in little boats, got jobs as supermarket bag boys and one was cleaning floors in the hospital where my very cranky friend spent a few nights. She said he was better than the orderlies at answering her requests for water or food.
I wish all the new arrivals well. Of course there are bad apples, but there are bad WASPS too.
According to the article the entrepreneurs are Haitians from wealthy families. Although it may not be obvious because of the way that Haiti is portrayed and stereotyped, there are wealthy people in Haiti. One of the people described in the article is from a family that has been in business in Haiti for 200 years. Up until 2007 they were major exporters of coffee beans, and they are trying to develop the agricultural products to provide something for their shipping business to ship.
Hopefully their efforts succeed.
An experiment, like using fertilizer. Using dirt to grow food, instead of making cookies.
How soon before the Haitian government finds an excuse to seize the land?
I'd rather see some progress for everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, or what some other person did in 1804.
The Haitians defeated the French, who had invaded Haiti and were seeking to reimpose slavery 219 years ago. That was 60 years before the US civil war where, using your terms, "whitey" killed "whitey" in large numbers.
I cannot believe - without suspension of disbelief - that suddenly Haitians pulled their heads out of their asses after nearly 2 decades following their decision to reject ‘big AG’...without outside influence.
My question stands, even if rhetorical for the time being.
https://www.gmwatch.org/en/news/archive/2010/12262-protest-over-haiti-outside-gates-foundation
And at this point in history, someone discovered that there is water there to be drilled? No one tried to dig a well before?
30% to the little guy.
Generous (not). /s
Haitians stripped ever bit of plant life from a virtual tropical paradise. DR dow not have the same problems.
But...l Haiti needs to pull her own boot straps up and the foreign aid needs to stop, now. Every dollar of “aid” is a dollar a local Haitian capitalism can not create. Every pair of shoes is a pair of shoes a Haitian cobbler can not sell. Big Aid is killing that nation.
In Haiti, crops failed not just because of too little or too much rainfall, but also due to a lack of access to irrigation, even when water is available. Just across the border 45 minutes away in the Dominican Republic farmers are successful, Marcelin said, so the issue is not the availability of water. “The only thing is there is no investment on our side of the border to bring the water to the producers,” he said. (This is why farmers in the region have been constructing a controversial canal off the nearby Massacre River, which divides Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in hopes of exploiting the potential of the once-lush Marihaboux Plain.)
Crops need water. Who knew?
Hard to say for sure just from this article. But, I used to know someone who was involved in a project like this. It’s been a few years since I lost touch with her, but as I recall, her main focus was on finding fertilizers that could be produced locally instead of having to be imported.
She was very excited about the potential benefits of biochar in agriculture. Especially since charcoal fines were plentiful and being given away for free there.
So does this mean that the 1000s that have illegally entered the US and have turned areas of Miami into the 3rd world, will decide to go back home?
Could your belief be based on some kind of perception or stereotype of who Haitans are?
The entrepreneur from Haiti who was profiled in the article is Geoffrey Handal. Here is some more background about him:
Geoffrey holds a BSc in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, in London, where he graduated with honours. He started his career as an external auditor with KPMG Haiti, where he was exposed to internal control structures of various businesses established in Haiti. Industries covered during that time consisted of Banking, Hospitals, NGOs, Utilities, Petrol distributors, Car dealerships, among others. Following his successful spell in accounting, Geoffrey moved to the UK to pursue a banking career at Merrill Lynch. There, he was a senior analyst in the Investment Banking division, advising firms in the European Consumer and Retail sector. While at Merrill Lynch, he advised clients on strategic matters covering M&A activity, IPO’s and participation in both equity and debt markets. In 2009, Geoffrey returned to Haiti to join his family business, ETS JB Vital, a shipping agent and logistics provider. Since then he has lead the restructuring the main business as well as helped develop new lines of businesses. Currently Geoffrey is the Vice President of the Chambre Franco-Haitienne de Commerce et d’ Industries (CFHCI) and sits on numerous boards of companies in which he or his Group are shareholders:
- Treasurer of Caribbean Port Services S.A., the biggest port terminal operator in Haiti, handling over 90% of the country’s containerized cargo
- Treasurer of DECSA, a local collection agency, collecting demurrage charges on behalf of all the most carriers represented in Haiti
- President of Logistics Solutions Ltd S.A., a supply chain management provider set up to assist foreign companies, private or public, with local logistics management
- Vice President of Caribbean Real Estate Holdings S.A., a real estate holding company investing in commercial real estate
Since you seem to think he is some kind of ignorant person, with limited resources, you must be a billionaire who went to Harvard.
Do you keep the pointy hat in the upstairs closet or the downstairs closet?
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