wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Wake of the flood

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Note #8267 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

04273
June 8, 2004

Wake of the flood

Haiti missionaries push long-term agricultural development solutions

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - Rodney Babe is being interviewed by computer because trying to
reach him by telephone at his home in southeastern Haiti would "parallel the
raising of Lazarus."

	Since 1991, Babe and his wife Sharyn, a teacher, have served as
Presbyterian Church (USA) agricultural missionaries in Haiti at the
invitation of the Episcopal Church of Haiti.

	The program - called the Comprehensive Development Project (CODEP) -
has sought to create a sustainable agricultural watershed along the Cormier
River and is designed to be one day totally Haitian-run.

	 Ecological recovery is slow work, Babe says. It means reclaiming and
stabilizing a deforested patch of earth - and the lives of the 4,500 Haitians
who depend on it. But it is the only way to break the cycles of poverty and
devastation that plague vulnerable families in this part of Haiti.

	"Too much foreign aid is directed toward the equivalent of soup
kitchens," Babe writes. "With most food and aid given, there is no
expectation of, or responsibility to, change destructive patterns.
Accountability measured by behavioral change and other factors can and should
be a requirement for continuing assistance.

	"If the church, humanitarian organizations and foreign governmental
agencies continue to direct the majority of their efforts and funds to
critical relief needs, is there any reason to imagine the needs will not be
even greater tomorrow?

	"It's time to make a horribly difficult decision. It's time to look
longer term and stop simply reacting to disasters that could have been
greatly minimized or averted," he writes, bemoaning the quick-fix mentality
that dominates U.S. culture - even church culture.

	Babe's words this day - good news and bad news - illustrate his
concern.

	The good news is that when Haiti was hit with late-May storms, there
was less flooding and erosion inside the 12-mile CODEP project than outside
it.

	The bad news is that until the CODEP watershed is completed, one
stormy season can still ruin the crops and the chance for survival for
Haiti's dirt-poor population. Crops more suitable to the terrain need to be
introduced as well, another slow educational process.

	This time, the rains washed away the black bean harvest, or, buried
it to rot in the ground. Without the storms, the crop would now be drying in
the Caribbean sun, the first step before the pods are shelled and the beans
eaten, stored and sold. For these subsistence farmers, selling black beans
pays for school, clothes and medicine. Black beans also provide 80 percent of
the protein in farmers' diets.

	"Attempts to salvage some of the bean crop are ongoing. Many of the
beans were picked, but unable to be dried," explains Babe, adding that, in
the United States, the beans would be drying in storage sheds, cooled by big
fans and unaffected by the weather. "A large number of farmers have gardens
they have not even harvested. Rain and mud have covered many of the plants.

	"Everywhere we go, there are whole families trying to manually
separate the sprouted seeds from the rest. It is a tedious job."

	Emergency relief, while necessary now, doesn't solve Haiti's
problems. When all the attention occasioned by this storm dies away - when
reporters have filed their stories and the flood waters have receded and
church groups have finished the clean up -  most Haitians will still be poor,
eking out a living between disasters.

	That's why the Babes are so committed to the kind of long-term
solutions the CODEP project promises.

	It has meant digging and cementing fish ponds to capture rain water
and provide more food and income - five tons of fish were harvested last
year. Four million trees have been planted to stop erosion and to provide
wood for cooking fires. Terraces, hedgerows and ditches are tucked inside the
hills to collect and slow water that would otherwise wildly pour off the
mountainsides, flooding everything below.

	"Now the water slowly drains off the trees, grasses and decaying
leaves, working its way downhill until it forms a stream," types Babe,
summing up ecosystem recovery. "Rather than a rushing deluge of muddy water,
this slowly released rain carries little silt - or mud - and the release may
occur hours or days after the rain, eventually flowing into bigger and bigger
streams, thereby becoming part of the river system" he says, providing a
mini-lecture in watershed ecology.

	This time, the CODEP system worked. While other local rivers washed
away houses, gardens, trees and livestock as they crested, the Cormier River
- still three feet above normal - stayed put. The watershed acted like a
gigantic sponge, capturing about one-half-million gallons of water in
cisterns, runoff ponds and fish ponds.

	Rather than rolling down the hills as a flash flood, it is now slowly
being released to the sea.

	This kind of report is music to the ears of Susan Ryan, the
coordinator for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. Too often she's called when
a disaster hits. But she prefers finding ways to avoid disaster in the first
place.

	"Disaster work is long-term work, like the work Rodney is doing
here," she says, citing the years of labor that have gone into this 12-mile
swath. "It is a slow, slow, long process."

	Currently, between 200 and 500 CODEP volunteers give one day a week
to the project's work. Each person represents a local family.

	Babe is now trying to introduce new crops, more suitable for the
hilly terrain. He's encouraging the planting of fruit trees, starting the
saplings in the shade of the four million other sturdier trees.

	Another promising crop is moringa, a fast-growing small tree with
edible protein-rich leaves, seed pods that resemble string beans and which
also produces an edible oil.

	But for now, his neighbors are squatting in the dirt, searching for
salvageable black bean pods. It isn't going well. What's worse is that the
rotting tendrils will not turn into seeds for planting next year.

	In a few weeks, farmers will plant sweet potatoes. But they lack the
nutrients to keep a family alive.

	"Journalists, aid workers, humanitarian groups, government agencies,
they're all reacting to the horrible news (of the flooding in Haiti)," Babe
types. "The flooding was devastating. The loss of life and property are
immeasurable. But such catastrophes help us lose sight of the bigger picture
...

	"This is a nation of God's children, who, in a good season, live but
a hare's breath from starvation," he laments. "Any deviation that leads to
reduced yields, negatively impacts community life and threatens lives in the
community."

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