The company pointed out that the increase in the number of vulnerable people is linked to the devaluation of the national currency and the spread of gang violence, which is restricting economic activities in the metropolitan area of this capital, the southern peninsula and a good part of the northern departments.
The failure of the autumn and winter agricultural campaigns and the resurgence of the cholera epidemic also play a role.
“Despite survival strategies, households are stuck in an extreme food deficit,” the authority complained.
The hardest-hit areas include the southern regions, hit by an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale in 2021, as well as the departments of North, Northeast, Artibonite, La Gonave Island and three communes of Port-au-Prince. just the most precarious.
Despite the situation, the crisis in Cité Soleil, the country’s largest slum, has improved thanks to exceptional emergency food aid, the National Food Security Commission said.
Currently, as a result of the severe crisis, urgent measures are needed to support 50 percent of the population to reduce household vulnerability, the institution noted.
Earlier in the year, Prime Minister Ariel Henry pledged to support agriculture to reduce food insecurity rates, recognizing that it is government’s responsibility to ensure citizens get the food that forms part of their habits in sufficient quantities and found at affordable prices of the population.
Henry stressed that this nation was capable of producing food and considered it counterproductive to import produce that could be grown on the territory.
jha/ane