ABSTRACT
Reflecting the increasing pressure on Haiti's agricultural resources, production per capita declined throughout the 1970's. When AID policy makers decided in 1981 to revise their strategy in Haiti, the context was an unprecedented crisis in the country's agricultural sector, both on the farm and the national levels. In response to the agricultural crisis, Agency for International Development (AID) recruited a multidisciplinary group of experts, and created a Food and Agriculture Strategy Team, to redesign its strategy for promoting rural economic development and supplying the food needs for all of Haiti's population. At the beginning of 1982, AID proclaimed that "there is a latent Haitian agro-industrial potential simply waiting to explode". The performance of Haiti's chief agricultural export and cash crop, coffee, has been dismal throughout the past decade, with production stagnating and the volume of coffee exports steadily declining. The Haitian government's high rate of taxation on coffee exports has reduced the incomes of peasant producers.
