Fruit, Lumber & Charcoal Ethnographic Value Chains in Haiti

Using the MEVMS value chain research and presentation strategy described here, this paper provides a rapid summary of the Fruit, Lumber, and Charcoal value chains in rural Haiti. The research is based on literature review, focus groups and a 405 household survey in the Grand Anse conducted in January 2018 on behalf of Heks-Eper. [Go hereRead More

Goat Ethnographic Value Chain in Haiti

Using the MEVMS value chain research and presentation strategy described here, this paper provides a rapid summary of the goat value chain in rural Haiti. The research is based on literature review, focus groups and a 405 household survey in the Grand Anse conducted in January 2018 on behalf of Heks-Eper; focus groups key informantRead More

Artisanal Fish Ethnographic Value Chain in Haiti

As the Western third of the Caribbean’s second largest island, Haiti has a relatively small continental shelf surface area of 5,860 km2, approximately 20% the size of the entire country (27,750); but it has an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of mostly deep-sea that is 86,398 km2, three times the country’s landmass and including what couldRead More

Industrial Fishing Value Chain in Haiti

Of the some 26,000 fishing vessels that were plying Haiti coast in 2018, only about 1,200 were involved in what can be called “industrial fishing strategies.” The reader should take note that this is distinct from the modern fisheries using megaton steel ships and massive nets with hydraulic powered wenches and onboard machine powered coldRead More

Formal Sector Egg Value Chain in Haiti

This paper focuses on formal egg production in Haiti. Data is drawn from a review of the literature and contact with farmers, entrepreneurs, merchants, and cooperative leaders. Current value of the Haitian egg market is 36 million USD per annum (MARNDR 2014). That translates to 41.2 million eggs per month; 6.45 million are produced inRead More

Chicken & Egg (Poultry) Ethnographic Value Chain in Haiti

This paper focuses on egg production in Haiti with an emphasis on popular class rural household livelihood strategies. Data is drawn from a review of the literature and contact with farmers, entrepreneurs, merchants, cooperative leaders, and two surveys: a 382 household “Chicken Survey” and a follow-up telephone sub-survey of 91 of the original respondents. ConstraintsRead More

Haiti Anthropology Brief: Origins of the Haitian Internal Rotating Market System

Haiti was born in the latter 18th and early 19th century when 500,000 slaves engaged in a 13-year struggle for freedom and independence that was arguably the deadliest conflict in world history. About half of both the civilian and combatant populations were killed. Many died violently, but a greater number fell ill and died fromRead More

Anthropological Brief: Occupational Multiplicity in Haiti

In addition to engaging in a vibrant internal rotating marketing system and integrated household livelihood systems that include a wide variety of crops, livestock, and harvesting of fruit, lumber and charcoal from trees, rural Haitians everywhere also exhibit what anthropologists refer to as ‘occupational multiplicity’, meaning a surfeit of specialties, such as housebuilding tasks likeRead More

The Haitian Market System

There are two principal market channels in Haiti by which food reaches consumers: the informal internal rotating marketing system that evolved dealing principally in local produce, and the formal import economy that evolved in association with imported goods. These two principal market distribution channels supply a third channel, the increasingly important food preparation specialists. AnyoneRead More

Street Food in Haiti

This article describes and attempts to explain the recent growth in Haiti’s street food cottage industries. Underlying the growth in street foods is urbanization and challenges that come with it. The challenges can be summed up as, “The Food Preparation Conundrum,” which can be further broken down into problems that the the street food industryRead More

distribution system