20566: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald-In chaos, a sweet season is turning to bitter fruit (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Fri, Mar. 19, 2004


In chaos, a sweet season is turning to bitter fruit

It's mango season in Haiti, but mango exports have been suspended, pending
return of the U.S. inspector in charge of the program, one of many
'nonessential U.S. government workers' to flee last month.

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES

jcharles@herald.com


HAITI

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- It is one of the few bright spots in Haiti's otherwise
grim economic picture -- mangoes.

But the temporary suspension of mango exports in the wake of ongoing
political instability is worrying local exporters and farmers, many of whom
make a living off the revenue from the juicy, aromatic, S-shaped fruit known
as Madame Francis or Haitian Francine.

Haiti leads the Caribbean in mango exports, reaping about $10 million a
year, $500,000 of which pays for U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors
there.

Three weeks into this season, however, mango farmers and exporters have been
unable to pluck the ripening fruit from trees because the U.S. government
inspector in charge of the program remains out of the country, having
evacuated Haiti on Feb. 28 along with other nonessential U.S. government
workers.

The U.S. inspector is responsible for overseeing the hot-water bath
treatments that all mangoes must undergo before they can be shipped to U.S.
grocers.

''We don't know when he will return,'' said Dore Nobley, a spokeswoman with
the U.S. Department of Agriculture. ``Once we get word it's safe to return,
we can be in position within 48 hours.''

But in a country where exports of Madame Francis feed about 300,000 Haitians
-- from the business mogul to the delivery driver to the small farmer --
every hour counts.

Exporters and others fear a ripple effect and a repeat of the early 1990s,
when desperate farmers began cutting down trees for charcoal to make a
living during the U.S. economic embargo.

''If we don't start now, all those small farmers will cut down the trees.
They will need some revenues,'' Bernard Craan, a mango exporter, said.
``These are small farmers who use the money they get to buy their seeds and
fertilizer for what they really plant, their main income.''

Also, with the rainy season approaching, farmers are in a race against time.
They need to begin planting before the fields become saturated and their
entire year's crops get wiped out.

To Jean M. Buteau, president of JMB, one of Haiti's largest mango exporters,
suspending mango exports without looking at the consequences makes no sense.

''If a small farmer loses his revenue, he loses hope; he gets on a boat and
comes to Miami,'' Buteau said. ``To bring back normalcy, you have to bring
back the economy.''

And the longer the mangoes remain on trees, unable to be picked and packaged
for U.S. grocers, the more urgent the problem becomes. Timothy Aston, an
American consultant for the Hillside Agriculture Program in Haiti, sees
farmers getting antsy as they wonder when they might be able to start making
a living again.

Hillside, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, provides
technical assistance to more than 45,000 Haitian farmers and about a dozen
large exporters who mainly deal in cocoa, coffee and mangoes.

A full mango tree, Aston said, yields about 20 to 30 dozen mangoes. Top
price has gone as high as 42 gourdes -- almost one U.S. dollar -- a dozen.

''It's a tremendous amount of money when you are talking about a significant
part of the population living on less than a dollar a day,'' Aston said.
``That is a hell of a lot of money.''

He added that he sees no reason why the Haitian inspectors, many of them
well experienced, couldn't oversee the hot-water bath treatments while the
U.S. program inspector is out of the country.

Nobley, the USDA spokeswoman, disagrees.

''It's important to have the [officer In charge] monitoring the program,''
she said, ``to ensure the technical integrity of the program.''

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