Under the dictates of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, Haiti began a programme of rapid trade liberalisation in the 1980s, writes Charlotte Denny.
The import tariff on rice, the staple crop of Haiti’s largely rural population, was cut from 50% to 3%, opening the country to a flood of cheap United States imports.
At the beginning of 1990 the country was nearly self-sufficient in rice. By the end of the decade production had halved and subsidised imports from the US accounted for more than half the local rice sales.
Oxfam says that while the urban population has benefited from cheaper food, the results have been devastating for the farmers.
More than half the children in Haiti are malnourished and 80% of the rural popu- lation lives below the poverty line.