The French established their presence in the 17th century. In 1697, Spain ceded to the French and the western half of the island later became known as Haiti. The French were able to run sugar-related industries becoming one of the wealthiest in the Caribbean, but only due to the importation of slaves and environmental degradation. In the late 18th century, Haiti’s slaves revolted declaring their independence in 1804” (CIA, 2016). From the start Haiti’s success depended on the slaves that were brought into the county for their labor. “Haiti instituted universal suffrage in 1950, but most of its elections have been marred by ballot tampering” (Lawless, 2016). Even with the people being in charge, Haiti was unable to stop the corruption within its political system. As the poorest country in the western hemisphere, the country has experienced political instability for most of its history. “Haiti is a republic with 2 legislative houses: the senate and the chamber of deputies” states Lawless (2016). Currently the country is being run by Prime Minister Enex Jean-Charles and Interim President Jocelerme Privert as the former President Michel Martelly resigned in February 2016 (CIA, 2016). The country does not have strong leaders to help it grow and therefore the nation as a whole is suffering. Along with a Prime …show more content…
According to the CIA world fact book reports (2016), some of the products grown in the country are coffee, mangoes, cocoa, sugarcane. rice, corn, sorghum, wood, vetiver, etc. along with agriculture accounting for 1/4th of the GDP since most of the soils are threatened. Haiti is rich in resources but due to its terrain and location sometimes the resources are harder to produce than expected. Lawless explained in his article how Haiti is prone to soil erosion since its terrain is mountainous which has a lot of dry soil; also the location of Haiti is also inclined to periodic droughts and with the absence of irrigation systems farming can sometimes be a struggle. Along with soil erosion, another problem in Haiti is deforestation, which is dated back to the French colonization. The problems in agriculture can be related to the political instability in the country. The government needs to take initiative to help the country gather the sources needed to improve agriculture and instill reforestation plans. Being an island nation the Haitians can rely on fishing as a source of food as that is the one area that the French did not invade as explained by Lawless (2016). The only concern with fishing would be whether the people have the proper equipment to carry out fishing. This is another area that the government should take an interest in; in order to improve the economy of the country as a whole. At this moment so many