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Haiti

Food Security Outlook April through September 2011

Attachments

In April and May 2011, FEWS NET is transitioning its classification system from the FEWS NET Food Insecurity Severity Scale to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s (IPC) Household-based Acute Food Insecurity Reference Table, which is scheduled for release with IPC version 2 in July 2011. For more information see: www.fews.net/FoodInsecurityScale.

Key Messages

• Last year’s disasters are still hurting the food security situation. Many markets around the country are reporting dwindling supplies of local food crops. The ranks of the food insecure are growing in areas like the Northwest and the western tip of the Southern peninsula.

• Though prices for imported foodstuffs are relatively stable, in general, current price levels are still higher than at the same time last year. The sole exception is rice, whose price is falling. On the other hand, prices for locally grown crops are rising on most markets and increases in oil prices will only sharpen this trend.

• This year’s spring growing season got off to a late start. The rains, which generally come by the end of March, did not begin until the middle of April in certain departments such as the Southeast, the Northeast, the West, and the Northwest. Moreover, the high cost of labor since the beginning of the cholera outbreak and high cost of certain farm inputs due to the withdrawal of certain stakeholders could mean smaller areas planted in crops for this growing season.

• With this year’s long lean season, increases in oil prices, the high prices of certain staple foods, and the surge in new cholera cases, very poor and poor households in the Northwest (Baie de Henne, Mole Saint-Nicolas, and Bombardopolis), the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, Grand’ Anse, and a number of municipalities in the Southeastern (Belle-Anse and Grand Gosier), and Northeastern departments will be classified as experiencing Stressed (IPC Phase 2) or Crisis (IPC Phase 3) food insecurity conditions between April and June. Good harvests of spring crops could turn the situation around between July and September, however, the hurricane season could further undermine the food security situation, were the country to be hit by a storm.