Farmers in northwestern Haiti are likely to lose a significant portion of their rice harvest because of reluctance to work in fields they fear are contaminated by the cholera-causing bacteria, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Wednesday. A cholera epidemic in the impoverished Caribbean country has killed more than 2,700 people and infected about 130,000 since October. The FAO said it is working with the Haitian ministries of agriculture and health to provide hygiene information to farmers. The agency's assessment indicates that many farmers are avoiding the harvest, fearing that the water in the rivers and canals that irrigate their paddies might be infected. There also are reports of consumers avoiding food produced in regions affected by the cholera outbreak, a factor that could further damage trade in agricultural products. The effects of the cholera outbreak on agriculture were compounded by the November floods caused by Hurricane Tomas, which damaged farming infrastructure and damaged up to 78,000 hectares of crops.
