This has not always been the case in the Artibonite. Like many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Haiti was subjected to a trade liberalization and privatization in the mid 1980's by international financial institutions like the World Bank and donor countries like the US. During this time, U.S. agribusinesses flooded the local market with massive quantities of cheap subsidized rice with which Haitian peasants couldn't compete. After the large-scale imports had succeeded in paralyzing local production, prices skyrocketed. A kilo of imported rice is now worth an average day's salary in the Artibonite.

I am spending the day with MOREPLA (Mouvman Revandikatif Peyizan Latibonit-Peasant Movement for Justice in the Artibonite), a local movement of rice producers that works with the coalition of Grassroots International's partner PAPDA (The Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development). Leaders from MOREPLA explained to me that rice producers in the Artibonite potentially could have the capacity to provide livelihoods for more than 200,000 people in a department (state) that suffers a 78% unemployment rate. While they focus on advocacy for food sovereignty through rice, they see their work as a part of the bigger struggle for Haitian human rights through self-determination.

In the midst of these hard times, peasants from MOREPLA recognize their role as the principal actors capable of bringing about social change in their country. They organize themselves through an intricate structure of committees and workgroups (gwoupmons), and bond together to create a chain of nonviolent resistance. "We cannot do this alone", a farmer tells me, "we have to put our differences aside, work very hard, and unite ourselves".

Out in the fields, MOREPLA's united challenge of the status quo through local rice production is in full swing, with women and youth taking key leadership positions. Once rice is harvested, it is sold or traded at small cooperatives and city stalls that support the sustainability of home-grown victuals.

In the last of many rice farms that I visit in the Artibonite valley, I meet with a female farmer whose return on her crops provides a source of income for her entire family. As I am leaving, she takes my hand and places a few grains of delicate rice in my palm, folding her fingers over mine. She smiles softly and looks back at the span of the field in which she works. She does not have to say anything. The green expanse behind us says it all.

To learn more about the politics of rice in Haiti, this short documentary featuring Grassroots International's partner Camille Chalmers from the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development is a great resource.

Read the NFFC's thoughts on the long-awaited end of the Doha negotiations on their website .

Chavannes Jean Baptiste, the longtime leader of MPP and a fixture in the Haitian fight for resource rights, greets me as he would a member of his own family, even though it is the first time we have met face-to-face. The center is buzzing with activity – peasant leaders from all but two of Haiti's 10 departments have travelled long distances to bring their people's concerns to the table and figure out solutions to the root causes of economic hardship in their broken country.

I take long walks and motorcycle rides around the area, visiting some of the many projects that the MPP has pursued in their 35 years of organizing – during nearly half of which they have been a partner of Grassroots International. Even the land itself impresses me, with young forests and farms growing in what used to be a wasteland. Like much of Haiti today, the Papay region was so deforested that people were unable to live off the land and were defenseless in the face of natural disaster. Now Papay is rich with various fruit and forest cover, a humble paradise at the crossroads of hardship. A new friend from the MPP tells me, "It is us who have to undertake the work necessary to create such a place." His dream is to look out over the mountains in 10 years and see Haiti as it once was.

On the way to a local water source, where one of the projects supported by Grassroots International is in full swing, we stop to talk to the mayor. His Kreyol is thick and dense, but I understand the immediate importance of our solidarity with the community in conserving rainwater in this untypically arid corner of Haiti. Peasants come to work here, creating a sort of terracing with intricate rock walls in order to manage mountain runoffs. This allows rainwater to permanently pool, and fish are abundant. Trees are being planted everywhere. People tell me that while some international groups haphazardly plant random seeds, MPP agronomists are constantly studying which trees are native to Haiti and making every effort possible to recreate the natural landscape.

Back at the center, everything happens in the spirit of community and sustainability. We drink local coffee, eat from the plentiful gardens, and compost waste. Peasants grow vegetables in recycled tires and plastic tubes. Farmers come from far away to bring seedlings back to their lands that will both grow into trees and provide food for their families. A women's group busily harvests medicinal plants and a young people's group creates a new banana field. This is movement building and food sovereignty in action.     

According to Cruz, a local Human Rights Center is closely monitoring the safety of the remaining 300 families in the encampment, as fear of a backslash from landowners continues. In recent days, Rafael Alegría – a peasant leader of Honduras and member of the International Coordinating Committee of the Via Campesina – received death threats after a clash between the national police and peasant activists in the community of Silin left 11 dead and more injured. Due to pressure from the international community, the Honduran government sent a military squad to protect the area and avoid new confrontations.