Worldwide, about 850 million people go to bed hungry every night.
In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and a place that has no shortage of disasters and seemingly insurmountable challenges to contend with in the best of times (it lies in the middle of the “Hurricane belt” in the Caribbean and is subject to violent storms from June-October; periodic droughts, floods and earthquakes wreak havoc on the country’s almost completely deforested landscape; the life expectancy rate hovers around 57 years of age; more than 5% of the population is infected with HIV or AIDS; just over 50% of the population is literate; etc.) has been hit harder than most countries by rising food prices.
Since 2007, food prices have spiked about 40% worldwide.
And Haiti must import all of its food — it’s only natural resources are bauxite, copper, gold, marble, hydro-power and calcium carbonate. About 28% of the land is theoretically arable — but deforestation has impoverished farmers and rendered the land unsuitable for any kind of crops.
Mothers are trying to sell their children in the street. Some are just offering them to passersby for the taking.
20% of Haitian children are chronically malnourished — in the best of times.
75% of the population earns less than $2 a day — in the best of times.
The one business that’s booming is the mud pie market: most Haitians can afford to eat a patty comprised of mud, oil and sugar. “It’s salty and it has butter and you don’t know you’re eating dirt,” Olwich Louis Jeune, 24, who has taken to eating them more often in recent months, told The New York Times. “It makes your stomach quiet down.”
President Rene Preval issued a Marie Antoinette-style “let them eat cake*” response, saying if Haitians could afford cellphones they should be able to afford rice. “If there is a protest against the rising prices,” he reportedly said, “come get me at the palace and I will demonstrate with you.”
They came. At least nine people were killed in a hunger protest while he huddled in his palace, safe from the madding crowds. U.N. peacekeeping troops ousted the protesters.
A few days later, opposition legislators vote Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis out of office.
The U.N. says it will distribute 8,000 tons of food in Haiti to counter the food crisis.
Perhaps I should stop whining about my $5 half-gallons of milk.
*Marie Antoinette never actually said this.
