25,000 Acres Of Haiti's Most Fertile Cropland Ravaged By Jeanne

[hatrack]

DUBEDOU, Haiti - "The corn crop is flattened; rice paddies are washed away. Even the bitter oranges exported to make liqueur have become casualties of Tropical Storm Jeanne, which killed more than 1,500 people and is raising fears of famine.

Jeanne's torrential rains burst riverbanks and irrigation canals and spewed boulder-filled mudslides that ravaged an estimated 24,700 acres of the most fertile land in Haiti, according to agronomist Jean-Andre Victor. "We can't even begin to replant because corpses are still clogging our canals," said Delva Delivra, 54, pointing to an unclaimed corpse in a muddy canal next to a field of crushed cornstalks. "It's the farmers who always suffer."

Since Jeanne pounded this area for hours Sept. 18, no help has come to Dubedou, a farming community cut off by a four-feet-deep trough that used to be the road to town.

EDIT

"In the 1970s, Haiti used to be able to produce about 70 percent of the food," said Guy Gavreau, the World Food Program's director in Haiti. "Now it's about 40, and this latest tragedy could affect that even more."

EDIT

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/9794510.htm?1c