“We Returned to Haiti with A Master’s Degree and Ready To Give Back”
Haitian women scholars are helping reverse brain drain to support Haiti’s journey to self-reliance
The future looks promising for 20 U.S. college-educated Haitian scholars who recently earned master’s degrees from the University of Florida and Louisiana State University, and have returned to Haiti ready to give back to their country.
Their graduate studies focused on nearly every field of agricultural sciences including horticulture, biological engineering, and entomology. An additional five students are enrolled at the University of Florida and are on track to graduate in December 2020.
With support from the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future, implemented by USAID, these scholars are going against the tide.
Today, Haiti ranks at the top of the list of countries with the highest number of educated citizens living abroad. But by returning home, collectively the students represent one of the largest cohorts of Haitian agricultural professionals from U.S. universities.
With the knowledge gained during their tenure at the University of Florida and Louisiana State University, these agricultural experts are seeking to fill the gaps by improving the fertility of degraded soils, developing higher-yielding varieties of crops, managing crop-destroying pests and plant diseases, and developing agricultural policies to help address major food production challenges in Haiti.
Recognizing the critical role women play in the agricultural system, 13 of the 25 graduates are women and they are all working to support Haiti’s journey to self-reliance. One such graduate is Marie Darline Dorval.
Marie Darline began work in the fall of 2019 as a research assistant, shortly after she returned with a master’s degree in horticulture from the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
“It’s important work,” she says of her responsibilities at the research laboratory on innovation, biotechnology, and sustainable agriculture, associated with Quisqueya University’s College of Agriculture in Port-au-Prince, the capital city.
She conducts field experiments on new varieties of sorghum and maize, analyzes research data, and writes grant proposals. “In Haiti we need new varieties of crops that are not only better adapted to the changing climate, but to increase yields and to improve disease resistance and food processing,” Marie Darline says.
She grew up in Port-au-Prince, one of five children. While Marie Darline’s immediate family members did not work as farmers, per se, they had first-hand experience growing crops — typical in a country where agriculture is the country’s biggest economic driver. Marie and her sisters tended a backyard garden where they grew corn, while their mother grew plantain and coconut trees in the countryside on her grandmother’s land, and several of her uncles were farmers.
Ten of the program’s 20 graduates have already been hired on an array of agricultural-related projects: one graduate helps to manage a portfolio of agricultural, food security, and environmental programs for the Swiss Embassy in Haiti. Others work as researchers and educators to train women farmers,improve soil fertility, and test higher-yielding beans.
Jobs are hard to come by in Haiti, a country that historically suffers from high unemployment and a stagnant economy. The job market is now even more challenging because of heightened economic risks amid the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing civil and political strife.
Despite these challenges, skilled researchers like Marie Darline are in high demand and have the support of the Ministry of Agriculture. The current Haitian Minister of Agriculture, Parick Severe, has expressed his commitment to helping these scholars find jobs in the agricultural sector in order to ensure their expertise will be put to good use in the country.
“We are training professionals in the most important areas in agriculture, including plant breeding, agricultural engineering, plant pathology, soil science, entomology… . The goal is for the women to become leaders and to help diversify the field and bring a unique perspective,” says Rose Koenig, University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences faculty member and principal of the Feed the Future Appui à la Recherche et au Développement Agricole (AREA) project.
Marie Darline says her duties are directly related to topics she studied as part of her master’s degree. These studies included examining the use of modern breeding technologies to accelerate the breeding cycles of improved sorghum, which is widely consumed in Haiti, notably in the drink malta.
She says she intends to continue to advance her career by applying what she learned, which also includes researching for peer-reviewed articles, training others, and even making presentations at scientific gatherings. She also teaches courses in agronomy and the use of modern techniques to improve crop yields at Quisqueya University.
“I’m becoming [more of an] extrovert,” she says with a laugh. “Now I can participate in presentations with ease and it helps me a lot with teaching and training others.”
Marie Darline believes her master’s degree prepared her for life as a professional scientist in what she hopes is a brighter future for Haitian agriculture. Looking to the years ahead, she hopes to use her new skills to start her own genetic-testing firm. “Haiti is a beautiful country,” she added, “and it is up to the Haitians to develop it.”
About the Authors
Charles Boisseau is the Communications Manager for the Feed the Future Haiti AREA project. Mariama Cire Keita is the Chief of Development, Outreach and Communications for USAID’s Mission in Haiti.
About the AREA project: The Feed the Future Haiti AREA project is a multifaceted initiative designed to build the capacity of Haitians and Haitian institutions to increase the availability of improved production technologies to farmers and the private sector through an effective and innovative agricultural extension and development system. The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences launched the project in 2015 with a $13.7 million award from USAID. Roughly 2.5 million Haitians live on less than $1.25 per day, predominantly in rural areas.The economy is largely informal and heavily dependent on small family farms. However, agricultural production has languished in the face of growing rural population pressures, recurrent natural disasters, extreme weather events such as droughts and floods, environmental degradation, and farmers’ limited access to information, modern technologies, and improved practices. The potential for domestic and export agricultural markets in Haiti is a promising and important driver of economic growth.
