15838: lyall on rice and beans (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: j.david lyall <david@lyalls.net>

I buy rice in 50 and 100 pound sacks. I just bought a 100 lb (lib we
say) sack for 180 dola ht last
week in St Marc. Miami rice in the heart of the artibonite. Haitian
rice is much more expensive.
Peyisan cannot afford haitian rice unless they grow it.

All government work on agronom has halted as far as I can tell. The
taiwanese are still working
up in po sonde doing something or other but there is no way local
produce can compete with louisiana rice brought in duty free.

Remember the scandal last year when it was revealed that lavalas
'organisation populaire' were  bringing in rice duty free and then
selling it? They don't talk about it any more because it is business
as usual now. The commercial importers simply stopped importing as
they couldn't compete after paying port fees and tariffs. Then they
figured out who to pay in  parti lavalas to get the same deal.
The importers now pay directly into bahamian bank accounts to get
their rice  out of the port. I rather doubt that this money is
re-invested in haitian agriculture.

Beans are largely local as far as I can tell. I buy local red and
black beans. They are competitive with imported ones. The rains have
been skimpy this year tho so many areas lost their bean crops.
Dokte says that the beans at la tonell have all failed and the maize
is half the proper size.

The rains came last week and caused big floods downtown and in
carrefour. Four people died in an iddundation down a street in
martisant. No one talks about building dams up the ravines.

Wouldn't it be nice if the organizations populaire were given boots
and leather gloves and sent out to work on drainage projects? Given
an actual job doing something for the country? Nah, only blan worry
about things like that.