This study is about the very important topic of how to get RUFTs (Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods) onto the popular Haitian market.
Haiti is 1/3rd of an island with a current population between 10 and 11 million people. Until recently the majority of the population lived in rural areas and was dependent on small scale agriculture and livestock rearing. A peasant economy par excellence, average landholding is 1 hectare with few people owning more than 12 hectares and few if any landholders outside of the capital city of Port-au-Prince with uncontested control over more than 1,000 hectares. Urbanization over the past 50 years has been dramatic, with the country going from 85-90% rural in 1950 to 50% urban today. A flood of migrants leaving the country associated with 35 years of political instability and economic recession has resulted in a heavy dependence on remittances, mostly from the US, Dominican Republic and Canada. Today remittances may be the source of as much as 1⁄2 of all legal revenue in Haiti. The past 30 years have been characterized by a general decline in agricultural production and living standards. As much as 70% of the population can be categorized as hovering around the margins of extreme poverty
