Sneak Peek: Food Rebellions Workshop

posted by brooklynfoodconference, on April 8, 2009

Last week I spoke with Bazelais Jean-Baptiste, a panelist on the Food Rebellions workshop. He’s been living in Brooklyn for the last four years, but was born and raised in a small town of Haiti’s central plateau region. Bazelais is an agronomist, which means he specializes in using plants for food, fuel, feed and fiber. But he also has a master’s degree in community economic development. He and his brother have been organizing the peasant farmers of Haiti for almost four decades. Chavanne, Bazelais’s brother, heads the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP), which he founded in 1973. The oldest peasant association in Haiti, it has 50,000 members. “But MPP goes outside the central plateau to work with other peasants,” says Bazelais. Through a network of other grassroots groups, Bazelais estimates MPP is actually connected with over 200,000 peasants throughout Haiti.

What touched me about our 40 minutes on the phone was how Bazelais gently educated me so that I came away admiring the Haitian farmers for their wisdom and pluck. By the time we hung up, I felt hope—Haiti is capable of reforesting itself, growing its own food, feeding its own people. Bazelais did not say this in so many words. Instead he told me about the farmers, the land and what he and his brother are doing to restore the land so the farmers can once again produce their own food.

Last year was particularly tough for Haiti. In June, food riots in Port au Prince killed five people and forced the prime minister to resign. Haiti was also hit by four tropical storms/hurricanes—Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike—which killed 326 people, injured 186 and destroyed nearly 11,000 houses. “The country was already in a very challenging situation,” said Bazelais, “Particularly for the peasants in the countryside. We have a lot of peasants, with very little land, so they can produce very little to survive. The hurricanes made this even worse. They lost their crops so they don’t have any seed. Many lost everything they had last year.”

In March, Bazelais’s group, the Bassin Zim Education and Development Fund (named for a beautiful waterfall near his home town), launched Seeds for Haiti. The goal is to raise $115,000, enough money for seeds for 5000 farm families, which would give Haiti a good start at feeding itself. This will be a self-sustaining seed bank, with farmers being loaned seeds at planting season and returning new seeds after harvest. A loan, not a donation, for two reasons. One, because Bazelais the Agronomist wants to create more seeds for Haiti and also improve Haiti’s native seeds, making Haiti and its farmers strong. And two, because Bazelais the Community Economic Developer knows that a shared seed bank is another way to bring the peasants together.

So often, those who want to help offer to donate U.S. seeds. “The seeds from other countries need good irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide,” he said. Haitian farmers use none of those techniques. “The rice and beans that we have in Haiti are very well adapted. They can struggle against the dryness. They can resist insects without pesticides. This is why it’s always better to have local seeds.”

Bazelais’ group is also planting trees to correct Haiti’s vulnerability to floods and mudslides. “Haiti is very mountainous,” he explained, “And we have no more trees. Now, whenever there is rain, we have floods. It’s really, really bad, and it’s getting worse.” (Take a look at these NASA shots of Haiti’s deforestation.)

The trees were cut down by people desperate to feed their families. Some of the wood was sold for construction. Much was made into charcoal for cooking fuel. Bazelais would like to see the tax on kerosene reduced to relieve the demand for charcoal. He’d also like to create a market for mango juice so farmers could get more economically from the fruit of their trees than from the wood. Again, Bazelais insists that the trees must come from Haiti. He told someone who offered seedlings from Florida, “It’s better to go find out what people what really need, see what kind of trees they want to grow and help them with that. The best way to help is to ask somebody what’s good for them.”

Bazelais was born and raised on a farm in a town so small it had no schools. His family was the first to send its children to school, but the Jean-Baptiste children had to travel far to do so. Now, in middle age, Bazelais has traveled to a city in another country where he sees people fighting some of the same battles. “Even here,” he says, “There is also the struggle against genetically modified seeds. There is something we have in common.”

-Paige Churchman

Read more about the Food Rebellions Workshop here.