The objective of this report is toexamine the linkages between rural economic activity, foodinsecurity and poverty in Haiti as a means of determiningthe barriers to rural development. The analysis draws on anewly available set of house-hold level living standardsmeasurement data collected in 2012 (ECVMAS). About 70.7percent of all rural households are poor, and educationlevels are low with an average of 2.8 years of education forthe household head. Agriculture dominates economic activity(78 percent of all households are involved in agriculturalactivities), although almost 25 percent of the agriculturalhouseholds supplement their agricultural income by engagingalso in some type of nonfarm activity. Overall nonfarmactivity participation (including households that engage inagricultural activities and households that do not) isreported at 46 percent. Nonfarm activities can be related toagriculture upstream (input supply) or downstream(value-adding and processing), or they can be unrelated tothe sector (retailing). This report identifies the mainfactors of production that correlate with increasedproductivity in the agricultural sector and examines thedeterminants of nonfarm participation, poverty and foodsecurity within rural Haiti. The information and analysispresented in this report point to two priority areas forrural development interventions in Haiti: (i) promotingdiversification of livelihoods sources among ruralhouseholds, and (ii) improving the performance of ruralmarkets for inputs and outputs.
PDF
download
878987797
028-85220240
