How National Neglect Turns Abundance Into Waste, and Keeps Us Locked in Manufactured Poverty
By LJ Cange | Opinion
Here in D’Osmond, a small village in the south of Ouanaminthe, the ground tells a brutal story. Beneath a massive mango tree, dozens of ripe fruits lie scattered like fallen opportunities. No children rush to collect them. No farmers gather them for market. No pigs scavenge for scraps. Instead, mangos — golden symbols of tropical abundance — rot where they fall.
This is not an isolated incident. Across Haiti, from the Nord-Ouest to the Grand-Sud, this same scene repeats itself. Mangos, avocados, breadfruit, and countless other agricultural treasures go to waste every harvest season, while in nearby towns and impoverished urban neighborhoods, families struggle to afford even a single piece of fruit.
Let’s be clear: Haiti is not poor — it is unmanaged.
A Nation Drowning in Waste While Its People Starve
In D’Osmond, as in hundreds of other villages, the collapse of infrastructure has turned what should be a seasonal gift into a burden. With no transportation, no processing plants, no refrigeration, no collection systems, and no viable market access, the community can do little more than sweep the mangos into piles and discard them. They are treated like trash — not treasure.
Instead of feeding our people, supporting industries, or generating wealth, these fruits are swept up and thrown away, year after year.
The Real Poverty Is Not in Our Soil — It’s in Our Thinking
This is a crisis not just of logistics but of imagination. As the article in Le Nouvelliste points out, the waste of Haiti’s fruit harvest is the result of technological poverty, which is itself the result of mental, civic, and strategic poverty.
We lack:
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The vision to see agricultural abundance as the foundation of industrial growth.
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The systems to collect, preserve, transform, and export.
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The leadership willing to prioritize long-term infrastructure over short-term optics.
In other words, the mangos are rotting — but what’s really decaying is our national resolve.
The Cost of Inaction? Generational Loss
Imagine calculating the value of all the fruit wasted in Haiti since 1804 — the mango harvests, the avocados, the breadfruit, the citrus — all of it lost, year after year. The value could rival, if not exceed, the much-publicized “independence debt” Haiti paid to France. But this time, the loss wasn’t imposed from outside — it was created from within.
Meanwhile, the youth of D’Osmond and across the border zones continue to cross into the Dominican Republic “to look for life.” They do this not because Haiti lacks life, but because we’ve failed to protect and nurture the life we already have.
What Needs to Change
This is not just about mangos. It’s about a systemic pattern that touches every part of Haiti’s future. To break it, we need to invest in:
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Agro-industrial zones in rural areas.
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Cold chain and transportation networks.
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Entrepreneurship training for rural youth.
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National strategies to convert surplus into security.
We need to reimagine farming not as a subsistence activity but as a cornerstone of wealth creation and national revival.
A New Generation Must Decide: Do We Let It Rot, or Do We Rise?
Our ancestors fought to free us from bondage. Are we now content to be slaves to mismanagement?
It is time we saw the mango tree for what it is: not just a fruit bearer, but a mirror. It reflects what we’ve allowed to happen to our country — the neglect, the waste, and the forgotten potential.
But it also shows us what is still possible: nourishment, value, and growth.
The question is no longer, “Why are we poor?” The question is, “How much longer will we choose to be?”
At The Haitian Pulse, we exist to expose these truths, amplify Haitian voices, and spark the bold conversations that lead to real solutions. We are more than media — we are a movement built to organize the global Haitian community and demand better.
💬 What do you think needs to change? Leave a comment below — The Haitian Pulse is listening, and we move as one.
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