Agriculture and Food

When talking about breweries in Haiti, Brasserie National D'Haiti (BRANA) would surely come up. Why? Because it is the leading brewery and bottler, as well as the number one Caribbean beer producer in the country. Michael Madsen, a Haitian whose family was considered one of the richest clans that time, established BRANA in 1973. His family came to Haiti from Denmark in the latter years of the 19th century. For almost 40 years, BRANA has also been managing the production and distribution of PepsiCo International products in Haiti. It covers popular soft drink brands, including 7up, Pepsi, and Teem.

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Coffee used to be Haiti's main agricultural industry; the country is also one of the Caribbean's oldest and original coffee producers. Yet Haitian coffee has been overlooked and unrecognized in the world market. This is due to the difficulty in entering Haitian coffee to the international market, as well as the lack of benefits given to local coffee growers, thus a decline in local production. But recently, new light and hope has been given to the country's declining coffee industry.

The Haitian government, in partnership with Saint Thomas University, launched the Café COCANO Fair-Trade Coffee Project five years ago and has since been able to help boost Haiti's coffee market and assist local farmers in production and compensation. This project is also in partnership with the Cafeiere et Cacouyere du Nord' Ouest Coffee Cooperative, Pascucci Torrefazione, an Italian coffee roaster, and the University's Center for Peace and Justice.

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Understanding the vulnerability in which the Haitian population is today in regard to high cost of food, the Haitian government has reacted by creating a price stabilization Commission. In addition, the government has ordered 300,000 bags of rice in order to affect the current price of rice in the market.

The 300,000 bags of rice is expected to be injected immediately into the market in order to reduce the price of rice. The Martelly Lamothe government informed the public that they will continue to follow this policy every time they see an increase on price of rice.

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President Michel Martelly, as part of his ambitious agenda to engage all sectors of the Haitian population, inaugurated the People Canteen Tet Kale in Créole in Carrefour on July 27, 2012. Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, Ronsard St-Cyr joined Martelly. Together they were there to initiate a dialogue of goodwill with the community and demonstrate their commitment to improve the quality of life for the underserved population.

At the People Canteen, located on 4th Avenue Bolosse, President Martelly and Minister St-Cyr stood behind the line and served nutritious meals to school-age children. Then they joined the children at tables and chatted with them about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Later Martelly and St-Cyr handed out soccer balls to screaming and excited children, who asked Martelly if he would play with them. Martelly replied he would do something even better, he would show them a few soccer-ball tricks.

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Haiti is home to the most exotic and colorful cuisine in the world. Most of Haiti's cuisine originated from the country's historical settlers like the Africans and the French. One of the country's many delicious foods known worldwide is the Dous Makos.

The Dous Makos was created by Fernand Macos back in 1939, a Belgian entrepreneur who settled and put up his business in the coastal town of Petit-Goave in Haiti. The popular delicacy's recipe was at first a secret but was generally known to be made of milk and was commercialized years after. There are now dozens of producers of the Dous Makos that sell and export their produce to different parts of the world.

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The official launch of the "Kafeteria Tet Kale" or "People Canteen" on 4th Avenue Bolosse in Carrefour, a largely populated commune in the capital Port-au-Prince, was led by Haitian President Michel Martelly last July 27. Together with Ronsard St-Cyr, the country's Minister of Social Affairs and Labour, the project is aimed at building better relations with the population and at the same time improving their living conditions. During the launching, President Martelly distributed food and soccer balls to numerous children.

The Martelly administration's Kafeteria Tet Kale is quite popular in Haiti, serving more than 500 customers a day. It is a cafeteria in the form of a truck, and was first introduced in the Carnaval des Fleurs, or the Carnival of flowers, the first carnival in Port-au-Prince since the 2010 earthquake. It immediately attracted carnival goers with its eye-candy color scheme of pink and white. The Haitian Creole term "tet kale" means heart and soul or from head to toe, which is perfect for the President's new movement on serving the country and its people with care and definiteness.

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The problem for many to refuse food after it has been offered to you

Holiday parties are about to begin in a couple of weeks. Hosts go all out, putting time and effort into menus for their dinner parties. Sensing this, people, who have dietary requirements, allergies, or are health nuts often feel uncomfortable refusing their host's offering of certain foods.

Here are a few guidelines to refuse food without giving offense.

Put a smile on your face. It's hard to take offense when someone refuses with a big smile. Research has revealed smiling serves as a stress reducer and elevated-mood enhancer. Smiles are also infectious. Hosts will often return the smile and the refusal is graciously accepted.

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Concerns are mounting that salami imported from the Dominican Republic (DR) is tainted with unhealthy levels of fecal matter. Deputy Fritz Chery has urged Minister of Commerce and Minister of Health and Population to ban importation of salami from the Dominican Republic.

Chery became alarmed after reading in the DR Listin Diario the Dominican Institute for the Protection of Consumer Rights (DIPCR) discovered 51% of 258 salami samples revealed fecal coliform at unacceptable levels.

Chery's belief is that dangerously high levels of fecal matter risks developing cancer in consumers, who ingest the contaminated meat. From a lay-person's perspective, with no training in microbiology, it's not necessarily the fecal matter itself, which may cause cancer, but the occurrence of sodium nitrate, a known carcinogen. Very high levels of fecal particulate may turn into a deadly form of ecoli, an intestinal illness, but not lead to cancer.

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One's health depends on what one eats. That is why the Haitian government have been taking measures in ensuring that the food Haitians eat are not contaminated with any kind of harmful components and that food processing companies follow the rules and regulations on proper hygiene and cleanliness standards.

Health authorities in the Dominican Republic have discovered fecal coliform contamination in samples of salami produce. It caused quite a scandal which caused the Haitian government to ban its import of salami from its neighbor. The Dominican Republic's Public Health Minister Bautista Rojas has recently announced that the results and studies that will be conducted as soon as possible on the infected salami produce will be disclosed to the public. He assured that the analyses to be taken will be of global health standards. Rojas also mentioned that the government has assigned a committee to be in charge of ensuring each of the product's quality, as well as guaranteeing the ongoing support and assistance of the Pan American Health and Nutrition Institute.

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Haiti's livestock plays an important role in the country's agriculture sector. From poultry to cattle, Haiti is able to export millions of kilos of animal meat a year. But this has been dramatically decreasing through the years because of the lack proper slaughter houses and the poor conditions of livestock due to untreated diseases.

In line with the Martelly administration's efforts in improving and developing the country's agriculture through livestock, especially in the rural areas, Haiti's Secretary of State for Animal Production of Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR) organized preparatory workshop for farmers in August on the upcoming launch of a national system for livestock identification and control of slaughter.

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