Haiti cracks down on eggs smuggled in to feed a hungry nation

Haiti cracks down on eggs smuggled in to feed a hungry nation

JIMANI, Dominican Republic — It’s dusk on market day at the Haitian-Dominican border. Throngs of Haitians have cleared Dominican trucks of their wares, stuffing diapers, brooms and food-flavoring mixes into buses, and strapping the overflow to roofs for the return trip to Port-au-Prince.

But off the main drag here, a smuggling operation is underway.

Men and women empty a couple of trucks, tying boxes with colored string and setting them in piles on the ground. Purchasers stack them on wheelbarrows and rush them to nearby Lake Azuei, where wooden boats stand ready for the trip to Haiti.

The contraband is eggs. Demand is high in Haiti, where malnutrition is a real threat for many people. Haitians eat more than 30 million eggs a month, and most cross the border illegally from their only land neighbor, whose eggs can cost half the price.

Haiti essentially banned Dominican eggs in 2008. The move followed discovery of avian flu across the border, but many doubt that’s the main reason. Haiti faces a dilemma familiar to many countries: Keep prices low by allowing free trade, or restricting imports and encouraging domestic production, even though that is likely to drive up prices, at least in the short term.