On Thursday, Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, signed a grant agreement with the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) for an amount of $3 million dollars for family farming "This program comes help farmers who cultivate land in difficult conditions and who need new ways and methods to increase their production [...] This donation will help them to improve and increase their production [...]"
Thomas Jacques, Minister of Agriculture declared "Thanks to this agreement with UNASUR, we will reach 200,000 families who cultivate the land, compared to 37,000 before that we have accompanied in 5 of the 10 departments of the country [...] We will now reach the 10 departments," stressing that twenty Haitian technicians were trained in Argentina in order to better utilize new technologies, a know-how, that will be now be retransmitted to other farmers to help them improve their production.
For Rodolfo Mattarollo, the Special Representative of the Technical Secretariat of UNASUR in Haiti, this agreement demonstrates the commitment of Latin America to support Haiti in its reconstruction process, noting that for the UNASUR member states, Haiti represented a great people. "Haiti has participated in the liberation of many countries in Latin America and we are always proud to cooperate with this country [...] The agreement on family farming, will allow the South / South cooperation to continue its road to the progress."
