Haiti´s Commerce Ministry detailed that a Loulouz rice shipment unfit for consumption and stored for destruction was looted by vindictive individuals.

In this regard, the ministry also announced to take new steps so that the grain is not distributed in local markets. Inspectors have the order to withdraw the product, while calling for the population to remain wide-awake.

Rice is one of Haiti´s most-consumed product, which needs about 500,000 tons annually, mostly from the United States.

Haiti was considered as rice producer self-sufficient till mid-1980s, but import liberalization, diet changes and low tariffs decreed during Jean Bertrand Aristide´s administration have caused a deep domestic rice production collapse.

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