Against the backdrop of growing global attention to inclusive rural economic development, Haiti’s top agricultural official has laid out an ambitious roadmap to reimagine the country’s agricultural sector as a sustainable, job-creating engine for growth. Speaking at the 14th International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD14) flagship conference focused on the future of rural economies across Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Panama City, Pierre-Richard René, Director General of Haiti’s Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Rural Development (MARNDR), presented the nation’s formal vision for sector-wide transformation.
René structured his proposal around three interconnected core pillars that challenge traditional approaches to agricultural development: expanding economic opportunity for marginalized groups, especially young people; accelerating inclusive digital innovation across the sector; and rebalancing public-private partnerships to unlock greater investment. In his keynote address, he argued that agriculture must evolve beyond its current role as a subsistence activity to become a core driver of job creation, entrepreneurial growth, innovation, and long-term investment, with targeted benefits for young Haitians and women, who are most often excluded from formal economic opportunities in rural areas.
Opening his remarks, René emphasized that the future of rural economies cannot be reduced to a narrow focus on increasing raw agricultural output alone. Instead, he argued that holistic development requires integrating production targets with investments in employment generation, entrepreneurial support, innovation scaling, accessible financing, expanded market access, and climate resilience all at the same time. To achieve this integrated vision, he called for a collaborative approach that brings together the Haitian government, small-scale producers, rural community organizations, financial institutions, private sector actors, international development partners, and innovation stakeholders around shared goals. For Haiti, this systemic shift is intended to transform agriculture into a sector that generates inclusive income growth, quality green jobs, and long-term economic opportunity for all rural communities.
Youth sit at the center of René’s vision, reflecting Haiti’s demographic reality where more than half of the population is under 25. To deliver on this priority, MARNDR has launched an agricultural start-up support initiative that will scale dramatically in the coming fiscal cycle. The program, which supported 11 innovative youth-led agricultural enterprises in the last fiscal year, will expand to fund 36 new ventures in 2026–2027. Notably, 60% of all supported beneficiary enterprises will be led by women and young people under the age of 35, ensuring that the benefits of growth reach historically marginalized groups.
The second pillar of the strategy is inclusive digital transformation of the agricultural sector. René stressed that digital tools must be designed to serve small-scale producers first, rather than prioritizing large agribusiness interests. AgTech (agricultural technology) and FinTech (financial technology) solutions, he explained, can deliver tangible benefits: they can expand access to real-time market information, improve the quality of agricultural extension and advisory services, strengthen production monitoring systems, and connect smallholder producers to critical financial and production support services. To advance this goal, Haiti plans to roll out a national network of hydro-climatic monitoring stations that will improve climate forecasting, risk analysis, and data-driven decision-making across the agricultural and food systems.
Even as he promoted digital innovation, René sounded a cautionary note about the risk of widening inequality. He emphasized that new technologies must be accessible to all producers and adapted to the unique realities of rural Haitian communities, rather than imported one-size-fits-all solutions. To avoid creating a new digital divide, the government will simultaneously invest in expanding rural connectivity, strengthening institutional capacity, and building digital skills among rural youth, so that young Haitians can become creators of context-appropriate solutions rather than just passive users of foreign technology.
The third core pillar of the strategy is rethinking the partnership between public and private investment. René affirmed that the Haitian state will continue to play a central, irreplaceable role in building the foundational conditions for a functioning rural economy: this includes investing in core infrastructure, irrigation systems, agricultural research, extension services, market information systems, regulatory frameworks, and climate risk management. But he also acknowledged that public investment alone is not enough to meet the massive needs of Haiti’s agricultural sector. Instead, the government’s strategy uses public investment to remove long-standing structural barriers to growth, creating an enabling policy and infrastructure environment that will attract private investors, local producers, and small and medium entrepreneurs to the sector.
To deliver on this partnership model, MARNDR has laid out concrete near-term investment plans. The ministry will strengthen more than 245 community-led solidarity mutual groups to expand access to community-based financing for small producers. It will also provide direct financing for more than 225 individual agricultural enterprises and over 54 small and medium-sized agricultural and agrifood businesses. The overarching goal of these investments is to expand financial inclusion, support grassroots entrepreneurship, and create and sustain thousands of jobs in rural Haiti, where unemployment rates remain among the highest in the region.
In addition to these investments, the ministry plans to upgrade post-harvest storage, preservation, and processing infrastructure to cut post-harvest losses—which currently can reach 50% for many crops in Haiti—improve product quality, and make it easier for producers to access formal national and regional markets. Planned infrastructure investments include building 10,000 tonnes of new cold and dry storage capacity, procuring modern processing equipment, and installing solar energy systems to power rural agricultural infrastructure. The strategy also includes targeted efforts to revitalize Haiti’s historic sugarcane sector, including rehabilitating the Darbonne sugar mill to rebuild this key value chain.
In closing, René called on global and domestic stakeholders to move beyond the traditional model of short-term, standalone agricultural project financing. Instead, he argued that long-term progress depends on building integrated rural economic ecosystems that can attract sustained investment over time. He expressed confidence that the future of Haiti’s rural economy depends on placing small-scale producers and local entrepreneurs at the center of all investment strategies. He concluded by reiterating the core priorities of the vision: offering young Haitians real economic opportunity rather than just reliance on aid programs, turning digital innovation into accessible tools for all producers, and strengthening collaborative partnerships between the public sector, private industry, and rural community organizations to deliver shared, sustainable growth.