of unprecedented levels of hunger worldwide, Haiti — a predominantly agricultural nation — is facing the compounding threats of rising sea levels, failed rainy seasons and intensifying heat. In North Haiti, months of extended drought have devastated recent attempts to plant trees and crops. The latest figures from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification show that— nearly half the population — are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity.
Any plans to mitigate present and future food insecurity must deal not only with climate change, but also with the legacy of foreign intervention.After enduring a century of brutality, plantation economics and racialized colonial rule, enslaved Africans and their descendants in the French colony of Saint-Domingue fought for and achieved independence in 1804. In response, France forced the new nation to pay its former slaveholders the equivalent ofin exchange for diplomatic recognition.