The Slaughter of Haiti’s Pigs (Transcript)

The Pigs 

No-one really can give a definite answer as to where Haitian Creole pigs come from or how they were introduced to the country. Some sources says the pigs are indigenous to the country while others while others says that the pigs were introduced to via the Spanish in the 1500’s. 

Either way by the 1900’s, the Kreyol pigs played a major role in the economy of Haiti’s rural population. In fact, by the 1970’s, a piglet could be purchased for US$10 and by the time they became a full mature animal a year and half later, they could be sold for as much as US$180. As such, the pig served a virtual saving account for many rural families as the pigs was used as food, while used a downpayment for land in some communities as well served as a means of income to purchase necessities. As one Haitian stated in 1985: 

“The peasant subsistence economy is the backbone of the nation, and the pigs were once the main components of that economy. With no banking system available to him, the peasant relied on hog production as a bank account to meet his most pressing obligations: baptism, health care, schooling, funerals, religious ceremonies and protection against urban-based loan sharks who would grab his land at the first opportunity” 

But by the late 1970’s, this necessity to the rural population of Haiti, came under threat.

African Swine Fever

In 1979, the Dominican Republic had a sudden outbreak of African Swine Fever in a few pigs. It then spread to Haiti where a few pigs in the northern Artibonite Valley were found to be infected. The key word here, is a few. Some animal experts theorise that the Haitian pigs were resistant to the diseases, hence why only a few died. But this statistic did not stop the United States from paying attention to Haitian pigs. Some US agriculture experts believe that the African Swine Fever would threaten their pig population. This was backup by Bob Bergland, the then US Secretary of Agriculture, who called the African Swine Fever in Haiti, “an emergency situation”, that threatened the US and neighbouring countries’ pig population. As such, the US, alongside Canada and Mexico, decided to partner to deal with this perceived problem. 

PEPPADEP

What came out of this partnership was PEPPADEP - Program to Eradicate African Swine Fever and to Develop Pig Raising. In essence, it was US$23 million extermination and restocking program of pigs in Haiti. Between 1981 and 1983, 1.3 million of Haiti’s Kreyol’s pigs were killed. By the end of June 1983, one US official estimated that only 40 pigs were left in Haiti. So that was the extermination stage of PEPPADEP. Then came the restocking stage. 

It is key to know that all of this was happening during the Duvalier era which largely is the most corrupt era of modern Haitian history. For persons who are not aware, the Duvalier era which lasted from 1957 to 1987. First there was François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who served as Haitian president 1957 to 1971 and which then was followed by his son, Baby Doc, Jean-Claude Duvalier, whose tenure lasted from 1971 to 1986. As such, one of the problems with the restocking programs was the corruption and mismanagement that followed. Funds to compensate the owners of slaughtered pigs never found their way to these owners. Documentation of the program shows that a large portion of the funds found its way into the pockets of persons administering the program. 

But the major issue with the restocking program was the replacement of the pigs itself, which was overseen by the USAID and the Organisation of American States. These new pigs were brought from US farmers, specifically from the state of Iowa. But these pigs were not suited for Haiti’s climate and so many fell ill and required attention from animal specialist - which many in the rural population could not afford. Furthermore, these imported pigs had an expensive diet of a very specific wheat based, vitamin-enriched feed, which was only sold by the government. The cost of these range from $120 to $250; and we say range because overtime the price of feed increase due to government corruption to lined the pockets of officials. The peasant population was not used to this because Kreyol pigs did just fine surviving off garbage and scraps from household kitchen. As one might have guess, the restocking program fail where most of the important pigs quickly died while others struggle to thrive. 

The entire PEPPADEP program cost the rural population an estimated USD$12-15 million; although one Haitian economist stated that the loss was incalculable and “the worse calamity calamity to ever befall the peasant”. Due to the now eradication of Kreyol pigs, rural Haitians were forced to turn to loan sharks and high interest creditors to cover necessities which was usually covered by pig sales. The situation got so bad, that by 1984, Haiti’s education sector was been impacted. As one report in 1988 states: 

“School opening that October, the first after PEPPADEP’s final eradication of the nation’s pigs, revealed that registration had plunged as much as 40 to 50%. Street vendors of cheap notebooks and pencils went hungry. The Lebanese and Syrian dry good merchants had unsold stockpiles of checkered cotton for traditional Haitian school uniforms. Deschamps Printing Company’s orders for Creole and French textbooks plummeted. All over Haiti children stayed at home, understanding that something was happening to them and that times were suddenly much harder.”

But those were just the short term consequences. The long term consequences were another issue.

Crippling Effects 

For one, the eradication of the Kreyol pigs, completely change Haiti’s diets moving forward. And since many Haitian peasants loss a source of income, many turn to charcoal production which increased deforestation in some rural areas.

In the middle of all this, a recession settled in the region in the mid-1980’s. As such, between 1975 to 1985, the average price of food more than doubled in Haiti. And now with no pigs to sustain Haitian communities, it led to food shortage and increased food insecurity in many Haitian communities. In fact, the first protest against the Baby Doc’s regime, was over food. This occurred in 1984 which became a food riot. In 1986, Duvalier fled Haiti. 

But the lasting legacy of the eradication of Haitian pigs, were the increased in food imports in Haiti, specifically food from the US. When Duvalier fled the country, the country needed money to sustain its population as well filled the gap of the years of corruption under the Duvalier regime. So they turned to the IMF, who loaned Haiti US$24.6 million. However, a stipulation of this loan was that Haiti’s required to reduce tariff protections for its rice and other agricultural produce. This thus open up the Haitian markets to outside competition. Within two years, the effects of this was felt. Haitian rice farmers suffered as they couldn’t keep up with cheaper, subsidised rice from the US. 

Bill Quigley in an article for Partners In Health speak of an Haitian priest and human rights advocate named Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste, who stated the following: 

“In the 1980s, imported rice poured into Haiti, below the cost of what our farmers could produce it. Farmers lost their businesses. People from the countryside started losing their jobs and moving to the cities. After a few years of cheap imported rice, local production went way down.”

By the mid-1990’s, Haiti was forced by the international powers to further opened up its market, even more. A slippery slope occurred. Food imports increased from US$80 million per year during the mid-1980’s to more than $350 million by 2007. By 2008, Haiti was the third largest importer of rice from the US. The same situation happened to Haiti’s sugar cane industry. Haiti which was once the world’s largest exporter of sugar, began to import large amount of sugar from the US and Dominican Republic when those tariffs were removed and force local farmers out of the market. By 2010, food imports accounted for 51% of Haiti’s food consumption. That increase to 60% in 2022. 

In 1985, Bernard Diederich wrote a piece in the Caribbean Review titled, “Swine Fever Ironies: The Slaughter of the Haitian Black Pig”. In it, he wrote: 

“the impact of being without pigs… a whole way of life has been destroyed in this survival economy”. 

Almost 40 years later, Haiti is still reeling from the slaughter of their pigs.