PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI – Earlier today, Representative Clay Higgins (R-LA) sent a letter to the U.S. State Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor requesting assistance in securing rice and other food shipments for Haiti. Overnight, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by gunmen in his home, exacerbating an already chaotic and dangerous situation on the island.
Haiti is the top market for U.S.-grown long grain milled rice with a strong market preference for U.S. origin. Unfortunately, the geopolitical unrest in Haiti has come to a boil and made unloading rice shipments there difficult as rice is often targeted by gangs as a valuable food staple to be resold on the Haitian black market, never making it to its intended destination.
Rep. Higgins shared in the
letter: “While the continued theft of U.S. rice shipments causes export market and safety concerns, I am worried that this will further increase food insecurity in Haiti.”
He continued: “I ask your help in working with the United Nations to intervene in Haiti and establish peace, or at the very least, better secure the delivery of all critical food inland to the people of Haiti to prevent worsening the humanitarian crisis just 1,900 miles from our shores.”
“The violence and unrest in Haiti ebbs and flows and has been made worse as a result of natural disasters, COVID-19, and the lack of government enforcement of law,” said Louisiana rice miller and chair of USA Rice Bobby Hanks. “Without something changing, like intervention by the UN or some sort of physical support to bring peace to the nation, Haiti will have trouble recovering from this situation. USA Rice appreciates Congressman Higgins’ leadership in addressing the critical situation experienced by our neighbors to our South.”
In 2020, the U.S. shipped 460,000 MT of milled rice, valued at about $245 million. Because what’s being shipped to Haiti is all value-added product, the sales go further in supporting American jobs on the farm, in the mills, and throughout the shipping industry.