Biswas Vol 2, Issue 4, 1st April 2021 | Page 38

An example of the unequal distribution of the economic wealth as well as the natural resources from the government administration’s side is a country named Haiti in western America. The prime minister of Haiti’s inability to solve the issue of food scarcity ultimately led him to give up his position and power. The WTO is responsible for the food scarcity that is spread in Haiti.

Just like our country India, Haiti was also once self sufficient in the production of food and the resources. Rice was produced in abundance there and the merchants used to buy the food from farmers to ultimately sell them to the society. This ensured that all the people of all the classes- the merchants, farmers and the people had food that was enough to meet their needs.

But in the year 1990, the restrictions that were imposed on the mass production of rice were removed due to the pressure inflicted on the government of Haiti by the World Trade Center. Later, large amounts of rice that was produced in America started getting imported in Haiti. America provides its farmers with large amounts of subsidies to produce food( and when necessary, also provides them with subsidies to make them not grow these food grains).

In this intensive competition, the farmers of the country Haiti could not maintain their stance and at last all of them sold their land to get settled in the urban areas. The multinational companies purchased their lands in the name of setting up industries. We don't know how much development actually happened, but we do know for sure that a self-sufficient independent country had now become completely dependent on America. After buying the farmer’s land (pay attention here and notice that all this work has been done in a complete authorised manner, which means that there never came up the necessity to usurp the lands that belonged to the farmers...because they were themselves ready to sell it..after all who would have been able to or even wanted to hold rights of their land after bearing so much losses in farming? )

Now the American multinational companies have increased the prices of food and grains way too much and to the extent that Haiti is now completely dependent on America for survival. Today, whatever cost the international companies set on the food grains, Haiti is forced to pay that but unfortunately, the citizens do not have the amount of money that these companies are demanding from them. This is the reason behind the starvation that is costing the citizens their life. Due to the implementation of WTO’s liberalisation strategies, several poor countries are now in a similar state as Haiti.