June 14, 2010
Dr. Rajiv Shah
Admin­is­tra­tor
U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment
1300 Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue, N.W.
Wash­ing­ton, D.C. 20523–1000

Dear Dr. Shah,

We write to you as Faith com­mu­ni­ties and allied orga­ni­za­tions who have a long his­tory of rela­tion­ships with Haiti, espe­cially with small farm­ers who work hard to feed them­selves and their com­mu­ni­ties and who are fac­ing even greater poverty in the after­math of the Jan­u­ary, 2010 earth­quake. For a land that met most of its own food needs less than 40 years ago, we are con­cerned that poli­cies put into place by the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment and by our own gov­ern­ment have been unable to cor­rect a trend toward the total col­lapse of Haiti’s agri­cul­tural sec­tor. The coun­try now imports most of the food con­sumed by its pop­u­la­tion. Hait­ian farm­ers want to make Haiti self-sufficient again and we believe that aid from the United States must fur­ther that objective.

In that con­text, we want to express our dis­may that $4 mil­lion worth of hybrid seeds donated by the Mon­santo Cor­po­ra­tion are being dis­trib­uted through the WINNER Project, under the aus­pices of USAID. We all want to see food pro­duc­tion boosted in Haiti.  Small farm­ers are say­ing loudly that they do not want to plant chem­i­cally coated hybrid seeds because they do not repro­duce true.  Roughly 10,000 farm­ers turned out for a June 4 march in Hinche to protest the use of hybrid seeds and chem­i­cal pes­ti­cides, as well as any risk of depen­dency on for­eign sup­pli­ers for seeds, since hybrid seeds gen­er­ally require farm­ers to buy new seeds for each plant­ing season.

We believe that Hait­ian farm­ers should decide what form of agri­cul­ture is best for their land and what kinds of seeds they choose to plant – else we slide into old pat­terns of pater­nal­is­tic behav­ior. Since the major­ity of Haiti’s agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion is done by small farm­ers, we urge you to lis­ten to their voices and to con­sult with the peas­ant farmer orga­ni­za­tions, such as the Peas­ant Move­ment of Papay, as you iden­tify alter­na­tives to the present plan and to work col­lab­o­ra­tively to cre­ate a sus­tain­able food econ­omy in Haiti.

We urge you to heed the requests of small holder farm­ers by not send­ing hybrid seeds. Such col­lab­o­ra­tion is con­gru­ent with the goals of the Feed the Future Pro­gram, which empha­sizes country-led plans and shap­ing devel­op­ment along­side ben­e­fi­cia­ries. We urge you to increase your sup­port to pro­grams that fur­ther ero­sion con­trol, soil con­ser­va­tion, envi­ron­men­tal reha­bil­i­ta­tion and food pro­duc­tion.  We hope that you will also pri­or­i­tize the local and regional pro­cure­ment of food aid when­ever pos­si­ble in order to pro­vide fur­ther sup­port to Haiti’s agri­cul­tural production.

USAID has a crit­i­cal role in help­ing Haiti restore its agri­cul­tural sec­tor so that Haitians may feed them­selves, a value that the psalmist praises: “He who goes out weep­ing, car­ry­ing seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, car­ry­ing sheaves with him.” (Psalm 126)

Sin­cerely,

Agri­cul­tural Mis­sions
Amer­i­can Jew­ish World Ser­vice
Church World Ser­vice
Colum­ban Cen­ter for Advo­cacy and Out­reach
Con­fer­ence of Major Supe­ri­ors of Men (CMSM)
Con­gre­ga­tion of Holy Cross
Global Min­istries of the Chris­t­ian Church (Dis­ci­ples of Christ) and United Church of Christ
Grass­roots Inter­na­tional
Groundswell Inter­na­tional
Holy Cross Inter­na­tional Jus­tice Office
Insti­tute for Jus­tice and Democ­racy in Haiti
Sis­ter Ser­vants of the Immac­u­late Heart of Mary of Mon­roe Michi­gan
Mary­knoll Office for Global Con­cerns
Med­ical Mis­sion Sis­ters Alliance for Jus­tice
Men­non­ite Cen­tral Com­mit­tee US Wash­ing­ton Office
PLANT (Part­ners for the Land & Agri­cul­tural Needs of Tra­di­tional Peo­ples)
Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.), Wash­ing­ton Office
Sis­ters of the Holy Cross — Con­gre­ga­tion Jus­tice Com­mit­tee
Uni­tar­ian Uni­ver­sal­ist Ser­vice Com­mit­tee
United Church of Christ, Jus­tice and Wit­ness Min­istries
United Methodist Church, Gen­eral Board of Church and Society

CC: Phillip Gary, Chief of Staff, Haiti Task Force, USAID