The Concorde Haïtienne de Sécurité Alimentaire et Nutritionnelle (CHSAN) strongly upholds a fundamental truth that is too often overlooked: there can be no food security without free, equitable, and sustainable access to quality seeds.
In a region like Grand’Anse, where family farming feeds the vast majority of the population, seeds are much more than just an agricultural input. They are the foundation of the food chain, the key to farmers’ autonomy, and a common good that underpins the food sovereignty of an entire nation.
Seeds: A Matter of Life
Each seed carries the potential for life, nutrition, and resilience. Yet in Haiti, access to climate-adapted, nutritious, and reproducible seeds remains limited. Farmers are often left with low-quality seeds—unsuited to their environment, or worse, imposed through opaque commercial networks or foreign aid.
CHSAN is advocating for rural communities’ right to produce, exchange, preserve, and select their own seeds. This ancestral right is under threat from agricultural standardization and market-driven systems that promote hybrid seeds—often sterile and controlled by large seed corporations.
Fighting for Seed Sovereignty
Through its agroecological projects in Ranja, Pestel, and beyond, CHSAN is setting up community nurseries, promoting local seed varieties, and training farmers in seed saving and multiplication. These initiatives restore Haitian farmers’ power to feed their families with dignity and sustainability.
To sow is to resist. In the face of rising food insecurity, soil degradation, and climate change, seed sovereignty is a vital form of grassroots self-defense. This is why CHSAN calls on public authorities, technical and financial partners, and civil society to recognize the right to seeds as a fundamental human right.
A Path to Food for All
Ensuring equitable access to quality seeds is not just an agricultural issue: it is a matter of social justice, public health, and peace. It is also an essential step toward realizing the right to food for all—here in Haiti and around the world.
CHSAN will continue its work so that every farmer can sow freely, and every seed planted becomes a promise of life, dignity, and a shared future.
