Millions of Haitians are food insecure

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A report by Haiti’s National Food Security Commission (CNSA) warned that some 4.9 million people, about 40 percent of the population, face a situation of food insecurity, local media reported on Saturday.

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The government agency blamed increasing vulnerability to currency devaluation, crop losses and the spread of violence by armed gangs hampering economic activity across much of the Caribbean nation.

The southern regions hit hardest by the 2021 earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, as well as the departments of Nord, Northeast, Artibonite, the island of La Gonave and three communes of the capital Port-au-Prince.

The particularly delicate situation in Cité Soleil, the country’s largest slum, has gradually improved thanks to emergency government aid, the CNSA said.

According to the national authorities, “Households are in extreme food shortages, despite resorting to survival strategies” for which extraordinary measures are imposed to help 50 percent of the population in a state of vulnerability.

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry earlier this year pledged to boost agriculture to ease the food crisis, acknowledging the state’s responsibility for food supplies and price controls, despite rising violence and speculation by criminal gangs.

Henry asserted that Haiti had the capacity to produce the food that the population traditionally consumed and felt counterproductive to importing produce that could be harvested on the national territory itself.