Decades of deforestation has made land in northern Haiti unworkable. But, with the support of the government, the World Food Programme (WFP) and other partners, famers are now producing crops again.

“People in this area, Paul Atrel, are poor, so for many years they cut down trees to make charcoal,” says community leader Emile Elinos. “This led to soil erosion and so it became impossible to grow crops to sustain our community.”

WFP supported the community to rehabilitate the land with a Food Assistance for Assets programme, where farmers were paid to plant trees and build structures which would prevent erosion, protect the soil and allow crops to flourish again.

“We are now planting different types of peas and beans on this land for the first time in many years,” says Germathes Charles, who like other members of the community was paid by WFP to carry out the land rehabilitation work.

In the valleys below Paul Atrel flooding has been a regular occurrence, irrevocably changing people’s lives. This primary school in Cabaret closed down after flooding and students were forced to look for another school to continue their education.

“When it rained, we always expected the worst,” says Rose Marie Fleurinord. “One day when the rain came, I rushed to help my neighbour whose house was flooded, and then the community came to my rescue, but I lost everything. As a community, we knew what we had to do to stop the flooding, we just didn’t have the money to do it.”

The solution was to build structures which controlled the flow of water and prevented flooding. WFP supported the rehabilitation work as part of its Food Assistance for Assets programme. WFP’s Rose Senoviala Desir, says the school and homes are now better protected adding that “people can now cultivate crops on plots that before flooded regularly.”

A few miles away, back in the hills in the village of Troissel, the community worked with the support of the Ministry of Public Works (MTPTC) and WFP to build a road which has linked them for the first time to local markets as well as health care facilities and schools.

“We all worked and were paid for clearing rocks and digging in order to build this road,” says Jean Ronel Saint-Preux. Families are now able to travel to sell goods at the market, spending 40 minutes on a round trip by motorbike rather than the seven hours it would take to walk in the past.  Many have saved money in the credit union set up as part of the road rehabilitation project.