The massive earthquake that struck Haiti on 12 January 2010 devastated rural areas as well as urban, destroying crops, farm buildings, equipment, and infrastructure. Indirect effects touched almost every corner of the nation, as 600,000 people migrated to the countryside, increasing pressure on already stretched food and fuel resources. Internal displacement worsened food insecurity, which affected six out of ten people even before the disaster.

n early 1986, the government of Haiti began a series of economic reforms in agriculture designed to reduce the degree of government price intervention, to increase efficiencies in the agricultural sector, and to reduce restrictions on the quantities of food imports. The critical extent of hunger and malnutrition in Haiti has underscored concerns by USAID and other donor organizations for the need to consider the impacts of agricultural policies and food aid on the agricultural sector, government finances, and food availability.