“When the rain and winds wiped out the metal sheet roof, I thought that this could be our last day for me and my family. I was mainly afraid for my baby girl.” Maurice Jean-Louis, a farmer from Camp-Perrin, reflects on the night of 4 October 2016 when 145mph winds and rain battered the south of Haiti, causing the country’s biggest humanitarian crisis since the earthquake of 2010.
Fortunately, he, his wife and his two young daughters survived the night but relief was followed by the realisation of the damage the hurricane had caused. His home was destroyed, and now the 45-year-old’s livelihood is severely at risk: he lost all his livestock, coffee and vegetable crops, which ironically were more plentiful this September than they had been in years. Maurice says: “We finally were ready to get some money after two consecutive years of drought. Our dreams were completely destroyed by Matthew.”
Maurice is one of 7,000 Fairtrade farmers who has been affected by the most powerful hurricane in a decade which killed at least 1,000 people and left 175,000 without permanent shelter. The southern region still hasn’t recovered from the catastrophic earthquake and now faces renewed fears of a cholera epidemic as rivers flood and rains spread disease.
Months on from the hurricane, there is a looming food crisis as well, due to damage caused to farmers’ fields. Huge trees have been uprooted, crushing cash crops, fruit and vegetables; goats and cattle have been killed, local schools and churches destroyed.
Humanitarian aid is rightly focused on addressing people’s urgent needs of health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, housing and education, but many producers have told Fairtrade’s regional producer network (CLAC), that because their communities are so remote they’re not getting any assistance. In the absence of aid, the chairs of the co-operatives are trying to help their members. The office of one co-operative is even being used as a temporary shelter for more than 50 members, but all of them are desperate and just want to work. They are calling on Fairtrade to help them meet immediate needs and help revive the agricultural sector by replanting crops, rebuilding infrastructure, homes and farms. They need loans and investment to improve the environment, save their businesses and increase production and trade.
To help these farming communities, this Christmas the Fairtrade Foundation is launching a new fundraising appeal. Fairtrade is asking the public to donate to the appeal and all funds raised will go to support three farming co-operatives and their communities in the region.
Waitrose has already pledged the profits from its single origin Haiti dark chocolate bar to the humanitarian campaign. The cocoa for the chocolate bar is sourced from farms directly affected by the hurricane such as the Fairtrade-certified Coopérative Agricole Union et Développement (CAUD).
Euan Venters, commercial director at the Fartrade Foundation, said: “Months on, the devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew is still affecting communities all over Haiti, but for many people living in remote, agricultural areas, they are struggling to get support and survive through the crisis. Haitian farmers have lost their homes and their livelihoods but they haven’t lost hope. The support of Waitrose as well as public donations will enable us to help them get back on their own two feet again.”
Cocoa farmer Bonnet Pierre-Louis, 58, general secretary of CAUD, lives in the agricultural town of Dame Marie which supplies agricultural products to cities in southern Haiti and the capital Port-au-Prince. Now production has stopped and no trucks are getting in or out of the town. On the night the storm hit, his home was badly damaged but fortunately he and his family were okay as they stayed with a friend. Now all he has left is a few documents he took with him in a plastic bag.
Before the disaster struck, Pierre-Louis was making a decent living from cocoa farming, growing enough fruit and vegetables to support himself and his three children. Now, like all of the farmers we heard from, he just wants to start rebuilding his life for his family and the community: “We need materials to build up our houses, tools to prepare our plots, and seeds to grow short cycle plants like beans, corns, sweet potatoes and pumpkins, within the next two months”.
Tor Harris, head of responsible sourcing and sustainability at Waitrose said: “We felt it was right to support an area so deeply affected by the hurricane with money from the chocolate bar that local cocoa farmers helped create. We’re pleased to be kick-starting this important Fairtrade campaign – every donation to the appeal will make a direct impact, helping farmers, their families and communities in Haiti.”
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