Devil is in the Details to Combat Food Insufficiency in Haiti

Haiti has a food insufficiency problem, and implementation of greenhouse farming techniques has worked to begin addressing it. Also known as vertical farming, greenhouses can produce up to three harvests annually. Haitian peasants, who use it, have increased their incomes ten times over traditional land farming.

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Yet vertical farming alone is not solving the food insufficiency crisis. A paucity of joiners creates an obstacle to success. Crop producers distrust middlemen, whom they feel are buying at low prices from them and selling high, cheating them of a fair profit. Without adequate participants, food insufficiency in Haiti cannot be managed.

A tangential issue is where to target the resources to help those with the greatest need inter alia. A paradigm, TRIZ, provides a blueprint for attacking food insufficiency, using an inductive method. To reason out the problem, going directly to a solution must be avoided. The process is to first label the signs of a potential food crisis within particular communities. Then survey them to unearth factors of severe and persistent malnutrition, yielding a more comprehensive solution.

Once a solution has been reached, modify it to the locality targeted. Part two entails getting peasants and middlemen to work together with full disclosures of market pricing and demand. A facilitated value chain model has been set in motion between the parties at this point. Follow-up includes monitoring and modifying the system with the aim of providing a real solution to Haiti's food insufficiency crisis.

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