Haiti Soil Erosion Stoppage and More Crop Yield Plan
Haiti’s landscape is about 75%
mountainous terrains and fairly rugged. The climate alternates between a dry season and a
raining season. Ever since the days the first maroons took to the mountains Haiti has had
peasants. But I can‘t help myself notice that the Haitian peasants may have never
conquered the mountains of Haiti to the fullest. In other words, it appears as if the
Haitian peasants were never able to make the mountains yield as much crop as it could.
I take for example my paternal grand-mother home
rural mountain locality of La faitee, 6th rural section of Grand Goave, I
believe; most of La faitee was uncultivated and barren when I used to go there in the late
1970’s. The soil there seems to be volcanic broken rocks. The environment was not
totally deserted though; there were a couple of mango trees here and there and a little
stream down below in the gorge. However, grandma had other land that she called "
terre jardin" (translation: arable land) about a good while away on foot or
horseback from where she had her domicile in La faitee. She cultivated those lands to grow
our exquisite Haitian blue coffee, millet, and maize. Well, she was not the only one that
owns land, off course.
The point that I am making is that very little of
rural Grand Goave is cultivated and it is probably the case for the rest of Haiti’s
mountains ever since we have been an independent nation. On the contrary, in East Asia,
all of the mountains are covered with crop and vegetation and we have an idea how.
Almost all of us who care about Haiti have heard
the devastation and despair brought about by deforestation and soil erosion. I can’t
elaborate on such matter since I am not an expert in the environment but I can offer an
educated opinion.
I do not believe the root of the problem of low
crop to almost inexistent crop production in many parts of Haiti is due exclusively to
deforestation and soil erosion. I do believe, however, it is due to a lack of knowledge of
commonly known practices to preserve top arable soil in mountainous areas. Let me take for
instance as an example of survivability the Incas of Peru who sustained life in the
Peruvian mountains for decades without too many trees to hold back the soil. The fact that
our Haitian peasants cut down the trees to produce charcoal does not mean automatically
the arable soil should be washed away when it rains; what it means is that we need to
teach our peasants a simple and easy way to preserve the top arable soil after they cut
down the trees. Let us face the reality that the Haitian peasants are not going to abandon
charcoal making any time soon. Why? Charcoal making is easy, requires very little first
capital investments and even less manual labor, and to top it off yields an acceptable
rate of return.
Reiterating the international belief that Haiti is
essentially an agricultural nation and stating my own personal belief that a reforestation
plan for Haiti just for the sake of reforesting Haiti’s landscape is a utopia; and
that the Haitian peasants is the backbone of Haiti, I offer the following plan.
This plan has four phases:
Build terraces in the mountains
Replenish terraces with new arable top soil
Devise an irrigation system
Grow subsistence crop at first
Build terraces in the mountains of Haiti
The Incas of Peru were able to survive in the mountains because they learned to build
terraces in the mountains in order to cultivate crop and feed themselves. It is a simple
but very effective idea of soil conservation. The Incas used stones to retain and support
their terraces on which they grew their crop. Well, let us spread the word; let us
encourage our Haitian peasants to not only build terraces to preserve the soil and grow
crop but also to plant fruit or vegetable trees to help retain the terraces instead of
stones whenever possible. The terraces being flat surfaces will be less susceptible to
being washed away by rain drops to the ocean. But what is more important in my opinion is
the fact that the total cultivable land area in Haiti will dramatically increase. More
cultivable land should mean more crop yield. Right!
Replenish terraces with new arable top
soil
Yes, it is common knowledge that most of the arable top soil of Haiti has been washed away
to the sea because of deforestation. But keep in mind that the force of gravity played a
key role as well; after all the mountains are slopes. Let us break the slopes into
terraces and replenish the terraces with arable soil. Simple isn’t it? Arable soil
can still be found in acceptable quantity in different parts of Haiti. For instance if
anyone was to dig the soil in the mountainous region of Bombardopolis or Terrier Rouge,
you would find that the whole mountain itself is arable land almost two meters deep. Some
of that arable land can be transported and sold at very reasonable price to peasants, in
other parts of Haiti, that need it to replenish their newly built terraces. Most crop need
no more than six inches deep arable soil to grow healthy. As a plan B, Haiti can also
import arable land from Mexico or Argentina.
