USAID has launched a project to boost farmer incomes and promote local organisations in northern Haiti.
USAID said the five-year Feed the Future North (FTFN) project, developed in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture in Haiti, is supported by Feed the Future, the US government’s global hunger and food security initiative.
FTFN is aimed at increasing agricultural incomes for at least 40,000 rural households, expand financial services to local agribusinesses, stabilise watersheds that support farmland, and improve roads in some of the most fertile but inaccessible farming areas.
USAID said the new FTFN is a US$88 million project that will focus on expanding farmers’ yields of primarily five key crops – corn, beans, rice, plantains and cocoa.
In addition to traditional farmer support, erosion protection, and investments in agricultural infrastructure, USAID said the project seeks to employ new technology, including mobile money, to make it easier for farmers and agribusinesses to manage their transactions, and cellphones to transmit market and other information beneficial to farmers.
– CMC