Title:
In Haiti, a Struggle to Get Crops in the Ground
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
Farmers in Haiti plant about
sixty percent of their crops in
the spring. But this spring is
a struggle with disaster.
The January twelfth earthquake flattened much of the
capital and surrounding areas. It left more
than two hundred thousand people dead and about a
million homeless.
International recovery plans
include helping Haiti expand food production. But
now seasonal
rains do not make the situation
any easier. The rains continue through May and June.
Farmers in the quake area lost
tools as the shaking caused landslides that buried
equipment. Also, many farmers need money for seeds
and fertilizer. And Sabine Wilke of the aid group
CARE says many lack the money to hire help
to prepare the land.
"For the planting, they also
need local labor," she says.
"And since they do not have
enough money to hire people, the work will simply
not be done."
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
said
it has delivered tools and
seeds to thousands of families
in the quake area.
The earthquake was centered near Port-au-Prince. An
estimated
six hundred thousand people left
for the countryside. Experts say
it will be difficult to feed them. Food prices are
high, and many people fled the capital with only the
clothes they were wearing.
Gerald Murray at the University
of Florida is an expert on Haiti.
He says many rural families have taken in relatives
and friends
who lost homes and jobs.
"There may be enough to eat for
a while," he says, "but before
too long there may be hunger."
Farming is about sixty percent
of Haiti's economy. But most
food comes from imports.
Before the quake, the government
and private groups were working
to improve agriculture.
Deforestation is a major problem. There are few
trees to protect
soil from floods, droughts
and severe storms.
In the sixteen hundreds Haitis French colonizers
cleared forests
to plant sugar cane. In the nineteen fifties,
forests were cut down
for wood and other products.
Poor technology and poor roads also reduced
agricultural production.
So did animal and plant diseases. Farmers moved to
cities.
Professor Murray says the average farm in Haiti is
about one to one and a half hectares. Fields are
commonly divided between level ground and a
mountainside.
And that's the VOA Special
English Agriculture Report, available at
voaspecialenglish.com and
on Twitter and Facebook at
VOA Learning English.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
