"Resuscitating Doha is essential to right the rigged rules of trade, but what's been simmering on the WTO stove will simply not deliver for poor countries, said Oxfam America president Raymond C. Offenheiser. "The financial crisis, which started in developed countries but is taking its worst toll on developing countries, should be the impetus for a change in course."
In a new report released today called "Empty Promises," Oxfam details how the Doha Round has become an exercise in prying open developing country markets rather than an effort to rebalance decades of unfair agricultural and industrial trade rules. In the midst of a global economic crisis, a food crisis, and a climate crisis, nations with the least blame and with the least capacity to cope with the consequent effects must not have to pay even more to enable their economies to develop, according to the report.
Over 50 million people stand to lose their jobs, remittances are collapsing, and growth in sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to fall by 70 percent this year trapping 90 million more people in poverty, because of the crisis. Food prices meanwhile remain high for poor consumers: by the end of 2008 a further 109 million people had been added to the ranks of hungry, topping 1 billion people worldwide. As the world experiences the sharpest drop in trade in 80 years, a "development" trade deal—as originally promised—remains crucial, according to Oxfam.
"Now is the time for WTO members to come back to the negotiating table, recognize that the current crisis provides an opportunity to address urgent development needs, and change the course of negotiations, much as they did nearly eight years ago in Doha," said Offenheiser. "At this time of desperate need for a change of course, the Doha Round has to step up to deliver on its development promise. There is little credit left for another failure."
The welcome political commitment from the G8 could lead to a fresh start to negotiations, but it cannot be business as usual. In the past eight years, developed countries have used the talks to continue to push to open up new export markets. Developing countries have resisted, saying they were promised a deal that would give them space to protect their farmers and new industries, an end to rich country trade-distorting agricultural subsidies, and more access to rich markets for their farmers and industries.
The widespread food price crisis has shown that food and livelihood security cannot depend solely on market forces. Development, rather than liberalization, has to be the central objective of negotiations and trade rules must respond to the needs of the most vulnerable people first and foremost, according to Oxfam. It is the responsibility of WTO member states to analyze the role of trade in the recent global crises so that the Doha negotiations take into account the new global context and contribute to a solution, rather than exacerbate the problem.
"What's on the table is no silver bullet since it continues to favor the richest and biggest farmers and industrialists in the US and Europe and sidelines the needs of the poor," said Offenheiser. "We have seen what can be done when countries find the resolve to avert problems at home, and this resolve must be translated to the multilateral trade agenda so that the much-needed conclusion of the Doha Round can be achieved in a manner that addresses developing country needs first and foremost."
]]>The report, "Investing in Poor Farmers Pays: Rethinking How to Invest in Agriculture," outlines the ramifications of a 75 percent drop in developing country agriculture aid over the last few decades, fundamentally weakening this vital sector. The report also reveals that two-thirds of the world's rural poor have been overlooked by what little investments have been made. More—and more wise investment—is needed, the agency said.
"Investment in developing country agriculture has fallen out of fashion over the last few decades, but it is a crucial part of the long-term solution to the food, financial and climate crises," said Oxfam report author Emily Alpert, noting that over one billion people around the world are now hungry.
Oxfam called on rich world leaders, particularly those meeting at G8 Summit in Italy next month, to push agricultural development assistance back to at least 1980-levels of around $20 billion from the paltry $5 billion currently invested. The report notes that some rich countries have of course not neglected their own farmers. In 2007 alone, EU agricultural spending was $130 billion and in the US $41 billion.
"A substantial increase in long-term agriculture investments is loose change compared to ongoing investments in rich countries or the trillions of dollars spent globally this year on the financial bail-out," said Alpert. "Strengthening the agricultural sectors of developing countries is a crucial part of the long-term solution to the world's food, financial and climate crises."
"Faltering public investment in agriculture over the last two decades was undoubtedly an underlying cause of poor people's vulnerability to the food crisis," said Alpert. "We cannot continue to chase hunger-related disasters. We need to deal with the underlying causes of hunger, vulnerability and poverty."
The report urged donors, national governments and private sector investors to invest more and more wisely in developing country agriculture, targeting investments towards people, particularly women, to encourage and support social and knowledge capital and enabling them to adopt environmentally sustainable farming methods.
"Women are key to food security," Alpert said. "Investing equitably in women's needs and building their capacity to productively engage in agriculture must be at the forefront any solution to improve agricultural growth and reduce poverty."
Oxfam also urged that donor funding must be predictable, transparent and untied. The agency also cautioned the use of any "one size approach," ensuring instead that investments are tailored to the conditions of specific locations, participatory and demand-driven. Special attention must be paid to farmers and herders in marginalized land, who often work in harsh and remote environments with inadequate access to markets and services for extension, credit and farming inputs, and fewer off-farm sources of employment. Such farmers and herders shoulder the burden of conserving crop biodiversity and managing some of the world's most fragile soils and could be critical allies in the fight against climate change.
"Despite perceived low returns on investing in marginalized areas by donors and the private sector, investing in developing country agriculture pays for itself by reducing poverty," said Alpert. "A healthy agricultural sector acts as a multiplier in local economies, leading eventually to higher wages and vibrant rural markets where farmers and workers spend their earnings."
]]>"The number of people on this planet who suffer from chronic hunger has climbed to almost one billion—one in every six—and it's likely to get worse because of the global economic crisis and climate change," said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. "Congress should urgently pass this bill to not only address the ongoing humanitarian crisis, but also lay out long term responses that will reduce the vulnerability of poor people to the kinds of food price shocks we've seen in the last year."
The US approach to food security abroad has been uncoordinated across US agencies. The Global Food Security Act is the first attempt to provide a more comprehensive strategy for the US to address food insecurity abroad, make emergency responses more effective and build long-term food security by investing in agriculture. The legislation improves our emergency response to food crises and provides funding to assist poor countries promote food security and stimulate their rural economies.
"The spotlight may currently be on the financial crisis, but the food crisis is still very real and needs an urgent and coordinated response," said Offenheiser. "Once the world recovers from the global recession, commodity prices will skyrocket again, increasing the ranks of those who go hungry on a daily basis. This legislation begins the process of forging an effective strategy for fighting hunger and poverty."
Food prices on international markets rose dramatically last year and have eased in recent few months, but prices in most developing countries have remained high or continue to increase. For example, five million people are acutely affected by rising food prices in Afghanistan. The cost of cereal in Ethiopia remains drastically higher than at this time last year, and in Zimbabwe, five million people, almost half the country's population, are dependent on food aid.
The Lugar-Casey Global Food Security Act would create a new food security emergency fund for rapid response during crises. The bill also delivers on new investments and partnerships in research and development in agriculture. Perhaps most important, the bill begins to address the lack of clear mission, strategy and coordination among US agencies that has hampered our efforts of fighting poverty and hunger.
"With billions injected into the financial sector over the past few months, the donor community is drawing on empty pockets, but we must see investing in agriculture as part of the long-term solution to food, financial and climate crises," said Offenheiser. "Congress should urgently pass this bill to help us prepare to deal with another major spike in food prices, as well investing in long-term efforts to fight poverty."
]]>Standing on the dirt road above the paddy, Luy Pisey Rith watches the farmer as he works. A program officer in Oxfam America's East Asia office, he is skilled at observing a situation and determining the appropriate response. Rather than lecture Kea on the drawbacks of how Cambodian farmers have planted for generations, Rith simply walks around the perimeter, gathering scraps of wood. Crouching near the ground, he lashes the wood together, creating a grid. Then he demonstrates how to use the grid to mark off parallel lines for planting. Kea laughs as he watches him. But soon he's accepted the homemade tool, carrying it with him as he moves.
This is the reality of changing minds, not just practices, in Cambodia. Eight years after Oxfam's partner brought SRI to the region, some farmers are following many but not all of its 12 practices. They immediately accept the easier steps, which save them money on the front end—such as weeding, selecting fewer but higher-quality seeds, and collecting household manure to use as compost instead of buying chemical fertilizer. But when it comes to providing proper spacing for the seedlings or managing the irrigation of the paddies, they sometimes trip up.
This is where the proper balance of patience and persistence comes in.
"We try to bring them to the method slowly," Rith says. "If we asked them to follow it 100 percent from the beginning, not everyone would. They need time to change."
Time to change, and the proper motivation to do so. After just one harvest using some of SRI's methods, Cambodian farmers experience immediate benefits, producing more than they did the year before. It's the job of Oxfam and our partner, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, or CEDAC, to educate farmers about how much more they could make. To respond to this kind of need, CEDAC started the SRI Secretariat, a permanent working group of local organizations providing training in SRI; the Secretariat is now a totally independent body housed in Cambodia's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries.
Farmers who follow all of SRI's 12 steps can produce 50-150 percent more rice compared with conventional farming. They grow enough to feed their families and sell the surplus at the local market. They save money buying fewer seeds and time collecting less water. The plants are bigger, hardier, and better able to withstand some pests, droughts, and floods. At a time when the poorest 40 percent of Cambodian people struggle to deal with rising food prices, spending as much as 70 percent of their income on food, it's these promises of more stability and security that move them.
"The increased yields and decreased inputs convince the farmers," Rith says.
Created in the 1980s by a Jesuit priest in Madagascar, SRI is flourishing in places—like China and Bangladesh—where rice is the staple of every meal and farming is the main occupation. Having learned of its success, CEDAC brought the method to Cambodia in 2000, choosing a farmer named Mey Som as the first trainee.
I first met Som almost two years ago at his home in Tro Paing Raing village. We'd come during the dry season, when all the fields were yellow, the rice plants dry and stalky. Back then, Som told me that he had seen big changes with SRI just halfway through the first season; he'd noticed that his seedlings were growing bigger and stronger. The same plants that had once grown up to his knees were now growing past his head. Som was so encouraged by the results that he began traveling around the country with CEDAC, talking to other farmers about his experiences, explaining how a technique that requires less water and fewer seeds could actually produce more rice. It's all about the roots getting the right amount of water, sunlight, and nutrients, he told the farmers, a refrain I've heard from so many other farmers since then.
When Som, 68, farmed using conventional methods, he barely grew enough to feed his family. He still depended on his daughters' incomes; they were working at a garment factory in Phnom Penh, a two-hour drive from their village in Kandal province. Now, Som's farm is so productive that his daughters quit the factory to run the day-to-day operations. Their father no longer depends on their incomes; instead, he's teaching them to carry out SRI.
Earlier this morning, we watched as the sisters used strands of wire to mark off straight lines in their paddy, planting each seedling in a neat, shallow row. One of Som's daughters, So Sophal, who is 37, said that following SRI meant putting more thought into the process. But that translated into less energy in the fields. When she plants fewer seedlings, she can cover the same area in half as much time.
"We used to carry the seedlings by ox cart. Now we carry them by hand," she says. And "before, I used to hire labor from the village. Now just my relatives help."
Other farmers from Som's village admit that they struggled to convert from their traditional farming methods to all of SRI's practices in the beginning. It wasn't that they weren't interested in following the rules, Rith explains. Some steps are just harder to follow in Cambodia. For example, more developed countries like Vietnam have better infrastructure in place for irrigation and drainage. So it's easier for farmers to manage the water levels in their paddies. But the Cambodian farmers I spoke to say that they typically depend on rain for irrigation, and because of that, they keep whatever standing water that accumulates in their fields during the rainy season. It was only through their SRI training that they've learned how it's better for their rice to have shallow water soaking the roots.
This is one reason proper SRI training is so crucial; it takes these sorts of problems into account. For example, CEDAC trained Som's family and other farmers like them to build fish ponds near their rice paddies. During the wet season, farmers can use pumps to remove the excess water from the fields and use it to fill their ponds. During dry spells, they can use the water in the ponds as a backup supply to irrigate the fields.
In addition to the ponds, CEDAC teaches SRI farmers to cultivate vegetable gardens and fruit trees. By diversifying their livelihoods, farmers can eat and sell other crops when changing weather patterns or insects (like brown plant hoppers) damage their rice. But they can also use the new crops to support SRI itself. For example, Som uses the pumpkins, papayas, and mangos he grows to make natural compost. The new activities mean more to keep track of on the farm. But that can be a good problem to have, Som says.
"I'm busier, but I have more food to eat. I can sleep better because I don't worry."
Perhaps the greatest attraction of SRI, particularly in poor countries like Cambodia, is that with just a bit of training and virtually no technology, farmers can earn big returns. This approach makes it the perfect partner for another Oxfam initiative, this one a microfinance program called Saving for Change. In August 2005, Oxfam began providing funding and technical assistance to CEDAC, the same organization that trains farmers in SRI, to form savings groups in 14 provinces throughout Cambodia.
Together, the savings group members focus primarily on their financial well-being, pooling their money (a few dollars from each farmer each month) to provide loans to their neighbors. The groups set their own interest rates, with the understanding that all the interest earned goes back into the community fund. They use their monthly meetings to review the bookkeeping for financial transactions in their group and to handle any outstanding payments or collections. But when that work is done, many farmers use the meetings as an outlet to exchange information about their experiences with SRI or any other issues in the community that they want to discuss.
"We have a monthly meeting, and we talk about our experiences in agriculture and other things," says Kea, the 37-year-old farmer who, thanks to Rith, is now using the homemade wooden grid to plant in Kompong Speu province's Prey Kdai village.
In a country where 75 percent of families lack access to financial services, particularly the more than 10.5 million people who live on less than $2 a day, pairing SRI with community savings groups helps individual farmers. But because the money stays in the villages instead of going to outside lenders, the communities prosper as well.
In fact, some farmers say they don't even ask for loans for their own use. They make enough money selling rice to provide for their families, pay off their farming expenses, and leave what they've contributed within the savings group. These farmers allow their neighbors, who might not be as fortunate, to take out what they need to support their small businesses or pay for farm equipment, seeds, school fees, and medicine for their family members.
Roeun Youn, 47, a rice farmer from Som's village in Kandal province, says that, thanks to SRI, she now produces 1,600, or 50 percent, more pounds of rice per acre. She earns enough to put away 2,000 riel (50 cents) per month in her community fund.
"But I haven't borrowed any yet. I want the other villagers to be able to use the money," she says.
Oxfam is working to grow both our SRI work and our savings group work. Our partner, CEDAC, and others hope to teach the innovative agriculture method to farmers in 12,000 villages in Cambodia over the next five years. And thanks to a new, nearly $12 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—the largest single purpose grant ever received by Oxfam America—our microfinance program is slated to grow to over half a million members worldwide over the next three years, or over 180,000 new members in Cambodia alone.
Having worked together to improve their understanding of farming techniques, manage each other's finances, and respond to family emergencies, Cambodian farmers who participate in SRI and the savings groups now say they feel a greater sense of solidarity and closeness with their neighbors. This is no small feat in a country still recovering from the ravages of the Khmer Rouge.
As neighbors learn to trust neighbors, these farmers build loyalties and relationships within their communities. Last year, Sophal took out a loan for 50,000 riel (about $12) to buy fingerlings, or young fish, for her family's pond. Knowing that her neighbors depended on her to pay back the loan as soon as possible so that the savings group fund could keep gaining interest, Sophal says, "I paid back the loan within six months—including the 3 percent interest."
As one of the Cambodian farmers participating in both the SRI and the savings group, Sophal's work is totally integrated and the benefits, ever expanding. She uses the water from the pond to irrigate her rice. She uses the fruits and vegetables to create compost to nurture the rice. The fish, vegetables, fruit, and rice feed her family. And the extra profi ts from selling those crops go into the savings group.
Her father, Som, summarizes it simply: "When I did conventional farming, we didn't have enough rice all year. We didn't have vegetables to eat. We didn't have enough water to bathe. Now we have a surplus."
]]>"There is not as much fish coming from the lake like there used to be," she says as she wraps her head with a kroma, a traditional Cambodian scarf. "Buyers are the same. Not as many."
At the same time, 88 miles away on a small fishing boat at the southern tip of Tonle Sap Lake—Cambodia's largest lake—Hem Von is taking a break from his work to eat some rice that his wife prepared for him. Even though it is only 6 a.m., he has been fishing non-stop for the past two hours. His next break will come at 11 a.m. when he goes to sell his fish. After that, he will continue to fish until 8 p.m.
"It is one way or another," Von says with an exasperated sigh. "Sure my fish have gone up in price, but so has everything like the fuel for my boat. I can't catch enough fish to buy food for my family, and so we don't eat as much. It is a miserable way to live."
Like the rest of the world, Cambodia has seen the cost of living increase in the last few months. In the past year, the country's staple food, rice, has increased in price 100 percent. A recent survey conducted by an Oxfam partner shows that for the poorest people in both rural and urban areas, getting adequate food is a daily struggle, with 20 percent of the population living hand-to-mouth on about $2 a day. The survey also showed that fisherman like Von will have a tough time coping with the rise in prices, since fish prices have only gone up 20 percent, while the stocks in the lakes and rivers continues to dwindle.
The hardest hit by this imbalance will be people like Savan and Von. Like most Cambodians, they spend about 70 percent of their income on food. By comparison people in the US spend about 10 percent. To cope with the soaring food prices, people are buying and eating less food—adding to existing malnutrition rates and the poor economic outlook of Cambodia.
Back at the southern tip of Tonle Sap Lake, in the village of Chnock Tru it is 11 a.m. and fish buyer Lor Bun, 40, is setting out scales and money on a straw mat under a make-shift shelter. In front of him several young men spill out of the back of la arge truck, preparing crates and baskets with ice to transport fish to Phnom Penh. Bun, the main fish buyer in the village for the past seven years, says he has seen prices continue to rise as buyers in the market decrease. He says that the price of rice is the highest he has ever seen it.
"We are increasingly concerned about the prices of fuel, food and there are fewer fish, but I have not seen a big drop in profits yet," he says.
Von, the fisherman, who is standing nearby waiting for his baskets of fish to be weighed, says that Bun has coached the local fisherman on how to raise their prices.But even with that he isn't making enough from selling his fish to cover the extra costs.
"We want to cry. We want to shout. But we don't know at who," he says.
Brian Lund, Oxfam America's East Asia regional director, says there are a number of people that need to get involved.
"To solve this issue we can not look to the Cambodian government alone," Lund says. "Donor countries should support the country's effort to support small scale food producers in their agricultural input, resource management, and sustainable production techniques."
In addition, Lund says that providing people living in poverty with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to effectively manage their resources and assisting them to effectively engage and interact with the markets, can ensure they will benefit from selling their products in the market. Nearly 80 percent of people in Cambodia make a living from agriculture, so higher prices offer the possibility of a better livelihood. However, with the agriculture sector accounting for a quarter of the gross national product, strong efforts must be made to ensure that benefits reach small-scale producers in remote markets, not just large-scale commercial operations and agribusinesses.
"And it is important that as investments and aid is given to Cambodia to help with rising costs, that it be a transparent and accountable process," Lund says.
At the same time agriculture investments need to better incorporate poverty reduction elements to create a better environment for small farmers to produce and sell their agricultural products so that they can invest in their family's future.
Von Siphou, 42, dices pineapples in the mid-day heat in Kandal, a Phnom Penh neighborhood. 3 p.m. is the hottest time of day in the city, where the heat comes off streets and buildings in waves. And it is the best time for selling juicy, ready-cut pineapples. For about eight cents more per pineapple, Siphou takes off the rind, cuts it into bite-sized pieces and provides customers with a plastic carrying bag and toothpicks to make the fruit easier to eat—fast food, Cambodian style. Several months ago Siphou saw profits of $7 on a good day. Now she says she is lucky if she breaks even. If she raises her prices—even by a few cents—no one will be able to afford the service, she says.
"I am working as hard as I can and it is not good enough," she says, chopping up a mango. "The only thing left to do is to not eat."
Across the street, Phi Thoeng, 27, is also at his peak time for selling spicy papaya salad out of his street-vendor cart. In the mornings he sells fried noodles while his wife cuts up and prepares the papaya for him to sell starting at noon.
"This is a new business for us, and it is hard work," he says. "My wife and I are doing OK, but we are eating less.You have to manage somehow."
It is now 7 p.m.. Darkness is falling and the heat of the day is receding. As she cleans bits of left-over fish from her counter, Savan, the mother who rose early to fix her children breakfast ,says her family also is coping by consuming less food.. The traffic outside of O'Russey Market is still at a regular hum. Savan won't get home for another hour, but today she doesn't mind.
"I sold all of the small catfish," she says. "It is unpredictable, so we will still only eat a little for dinner. But it is a good day."
]]>But if the passerby stopped to listen to the conversation, she would know that this is no ordinary gossip session.
"I need to find a better way to show off my natural vegetables next to the others in the market," says Horng Vary, a 51-year-old farmer and mother. "They might not look as good, but I know they taste better. How do you do it?"
Her friend and neighbor. Van Sou Cheun, 52, tells her to show only the best ones and then when people come to buy tell them about the taste.
"I think it is best to tell them, not show them," Van Sou Korn, 54, says agreeing with Cheun.
This very simple act of exchanging information on ways to better market their products is at the heart of an Oxfam America initiative designed to allow farmers to pool their savings and take charge of their futures. Called Saving for Change, the program allows members in rural communities to save, lend, and pay each other interest while also encouraging them to share new farming and livelihoods ideas with each other. In the process, small farmers like these three women will become better equipped to battle the rising costs that recently hit the world, and Cambodia.
A recent survey done by an Oxfam partner shows that in Cambodia, 2.6 million people are facing food insecurity with the poorest people struggling to deal with rising food prices. More specifically, the survey suggests that villages like Kork around the Tonle Sap Lake will be the hardest hit.
Cambodians spend as much as 70 percent of their income on food, as compared to the US where people spend about 10 percent. This means that to cope with the soaring food prices, people are buying and eating less food—adding to existing malnutrition among people and the country's poor economic outlook.
Unlike some African countries that do not grow enough food to feed their people, Cambodia has produced a surplus of food in the past few years—including its staple rice. But rice is now a 100 percent more expensive than it was last year, making it pricey for the poorest 40 percent of the population. The causes of the increased prices are varied—climate change, rising fertilizer costs, insect infestations, and uninformed trade—but the outcomes are the same: instability and insecurity for the poorest families.
But with 80 percent of the people in Cambodia making a living from agriculture, it would seem that higher prices offer the possibility of a better livelihood for farmers. Unfortunately this isn't the case since small-scale farmers individually have little bargaining power in terms of selling their produce or buying things like seeds and fertilizer.
This is where three women working together and sharing information could change the balance of power.
Oxfam America has taken strides in building human connections in East Asia through Saving for Change. The microfinance program has jumpstarted trust and knowledge sharing in rural areas because it allows communities to be in charge of their own futures and promotes the need for them to work together in order to reach individual goals.
All three women are a part of a Saving for Change program and through it have learned of another Oxfam America program: System of Rice Intensification, or SRI. A process of 12 low-cost, simple practices, SRI helps small farmers increase their yields of rice by 50 to 100 percent while allowing them save on seed and water costs.
They are now SRI farmers.
"When I first heard about this way to grow rice I didn't believe it," Vary says. "But when I saw my neighbors growing more rice, I took a small part of my land and tried it. I have had three harvests, each one producing more rice than the one before."
This is especially important now. The survey results show that many rice farmers are facing a 70 percent increase in production costs, so growing more rice while saving on water and seeds can make a big difference.
"Everything is more expensive now," Vary says. "But at least we have more rice than some of our neighbors."
The Saving for Change program requires that group members formally meet each month to go over financial transactions in the community. That meeting also gives them the chance to talk about other issues such as their agricultural practices or selling tactics.
"When one of us goes to another market in another village, we bring back a list of prices to share with the group," Vary says. "It keeps us competitive."
The three women find time each week to talk about how their SRI fields are doing and share practices and experiments with the methodology. They all agree that sharing information on how to grow more rice or how to better sell their products will help them manage during this time of soaring costs.
"It is important for us to do this now because of the prices," Vary says. "We are not worried, though, because we have each other. We feel supported."
]]>On a recent Wednesday morning in the West Arsi Zone, a large crowd of people gather outside the government offices in the Shalla district, where, according to government figures, 55,598 people have been identified as needy, but only 10,000—people with the most severe wants—are getting help. In this crisis, distinctions based on need have begun to blur.
"For us, it is becoming even more difficult to tell who is the poorest of the poor," says one man.
The faces of the people in the crowd are gaunt, their clothes are tattered. Suddenly, a low roar swells from their midst. They surge from the compound and out onto the road, surrounding a pair of aid workers in a dense, crushing circle. They are desperate to tell their stories, desperate for help.
A middle-aged man shouts out that local officials promised two weeks ago to support the people with wheat, oil, and corn, but so far he has received nothing. Instead, the crowd's vigil, now in its fourth day, is met only with this admonition: wait.
An elderly man adds that one of those in the crowd on the road couldn't wait anymore and died there the day before.
Others say they have been filling their stomachs with a leafy weed that has sprung up since the rains came. But the greens—boiled in water and salted—have made some of their children sick with diarrhea.
Weak from lack of real food and their stomachs filled with forage, the children of one mother sometimes faint on their way to school.
"Can you help me?" she asks, staring at the aid workers.
A short distance away, mothers rest on a long line of benches under the shade of a giant tree at the Shalla health center. Small children, unnaturally still, sit on their laps, their cries occasionally piercing the din. This is a feeding center where some of the weakest children come for a week's supply of Plumpy Nut—a nutrient-packed food supplement for malnourished children.
Not all hungry children qualify for the supplement. Some are deemed still well enough not to require it. One of them is the 11-month-old son of a single mother. He is her only child, and desperate to have him get more food, she offers to give him away to an aid worker—a gesture of hopelessness other mothers make, too.
A five-year-old girl holds the hand of her father as she limps slowly toward the packets of Plumpy Nut a worker is counting out for her. She has recently spent 15 days in a hospital in Shashemene because of severe malnutrition, and is now strong enough to rejoin her family. But her mother is sick following the delivery of a new baby, and the two-and-a-half acres of seeds her father just planted for the next harvest have all been washed away by a sudden heavy rain.
"We are facing so many disasters at the same time," says the leader of a local community, where he notes that one man died the day before and many of the women are sinking into exhaustion. "Drought, flood, disease."
]]>Breakfast is no longer part of her children's morning routine. Alexandre can't afford it. Most of what she earns as a street vendor in the Carrefour-Feuilles district of Port-au-Prince she was already spending on food for her family. But the steep rise in the cost of rice, a Haitian staple, is pricing Alexandre and her family out of regular meals.
Less than 20 years ago, the country was nearly self-sufficient when it came to rice production. But in 1995, when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund pressured Haiti to cut import tariffs on rice from 50 percent to 3 percent, cheap subsidized rice from the US began to flood into the country. Urban consumers benefited for a while from the low-cost imports, but they caused national rice production to plummet. Today, Haiti is now importing 80 percent of the rice it consumes—just as world prices have doubled.
More than half the country's population is malnourished, and more than 80 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line. Rising prices provoked riots in several Haitian cities earlier this spring and forced the resignation of the country's prime minister.
"If people are hungry, they have no stake in stability," said Hedi Annabi, the UN special representative in Haiti. "They will be ready for anything--for anarchy--because they have nothing to safeguard or to fight for."
While the entire country is affected, cities--where 40 percent of the populations lives--are especially hard hit.
Agriculture, which employs more than 60 percent of the Haitian workforce, is one of the areas most affected by trade liberalization policies. An estimated 830,000 jobs in Haiti have been lost in recent years, primarily in agriculture.
In the capital, Port-au-Prince and the town of Jacmel in the southeast, Oxfam is helping families hardest hit by the rising food prices. Working through local partners, Oxfam is supporting subsidized community restaurants, school canteens, and helping parents pay off debts to schools. Cash-for-work community clean up activities are also planned for several neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince.
In rural areas in the north of the country, Oxfam is organizing a cash-for-work canal cleaning project, improving and diversifying crops and vegetables, and improving market links for small farmers.
It is through the community restaurant that Alexandre has found some relief from her hardship.
"I am the sole provider for my children," she said. "Their father dies a year ago and now I am alone. If he was here, it would be much easier to manage."
For just 13 cents, Alexandre and her children can now buy a daily subsidized hot meal at one of eight community restaurants supported by Oxfam.
"It's unthinkable that I would be able to buy a meal for my kids for 5 gourdes (13 cents)," says Alexandre, smiling. "It means that every day I have been able to save a little bit of money for other things. Now not all of my money must go on buying food."
Run by a local organization, the restaurants provide immediate relief to those families hit hardest by rising food prices. They are open from 10 a.m. to noon four days a week, and serve up to 200 meals a day, ranging from cornmeal and fish to bouillion, a hearty Haitian vegetable stew.
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