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There's another thing that is missing, the article says "Haiti and the D.R. share the same geography" but that is quite wrong, as Haiti was actually the undesir

There's another thing that is missing, the article says "Haiti and the D.R. share the same geography" but that is quite wrong, as Haiti was actually the undesirable part of the island, an unexploited part that was opportunistically colonised by France because Spain didn't use it. They don't share the same geography or natural resources at all, most of the settled, economically important places both in Haiti and DR are in the plains but DR has more plains than the whole area of Haiti, while Haiti's few plains are mostly salt marshes with cities in the more hospitable areas.

dmurray 5y ago
The article claims the opposite: > Haiti [...] is steadily losing arable land. But it still has more arable land than the entire Dominican Republic, despite being only about half as large in terms of territory! So the D.R. actually had — and has — less opportunity to farm. Seems almost the opposite of your argument, if we substitute "plains that are not salt marshes" for "arable land". I don't know which is true or whether you're actually measuring something substantially different.
- seszett 5y ago
  Weird, but Wikipedia does say of the DR that almost 80% of the total land area [is] suitable for crop production and that the main exports are fruits such as avocado, papaya, bananas, cocoa, etc, which don't grow on arable land anyway. In 1998, arable land totaled 1,020,000 hectares; with land under permanent crops at 480,000 hectares.[0] While on Haiti, it says that of the total arable land of 550,000 hectares, 125,000 hectares are suited for irrigation, and of those only 75,000 hectares actually have been improved with irrigation.[1] So while I'm sure Haiti could do better than what they are doing now, it seems curious to say that it is more suited for farming than the Dominican Republic. I think the author might have misread numbers. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Dominican_Republic#Agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Dominican_Repub... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haiti#Agriculture,_forestry,_and_fishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haiti#Agriculture,_...

dmurray 5y ago

The article claims the opposite: > Haiti [...] is steadily losing arable land. But it still has more arable land than the entire Dominican Republic, despite being only about half as large in terms of territory! So the D.R. actually had — and has — less opportunity to farm. Seems almost the opposite of your argument, if we substitute "plains that are not salt marshes" for "arable land". I don't know which is true or whether you're actually measuring something substantially different.

seszett 5y ago
Weird, but Wikipedia does say of the DR that almost 80% of the total land area [is] suitable for crop production and that the main exports are fruits such as avocado, papaya, bananas, cocoa, etc, which don't grow on arable land anyway. In 1998, arable land totaled 1,020,000 hectares; with land under permanent crops at 480,000 hectares.[0] While on Haiti, it says that of the total arable land of 550,000 hectares, 125,000 hectares are suited for irrigation, and of those only 75,000 hectares actually have been improved with irrigation.[1] So while I'm sure Haiti could do better than what they are doing now, it seems curious to say that it is more suited for farming than the Dominican Republic. I think the author might have misread numbers. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Dominican_Republic#Agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Dominican_Repub... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haiti#Agriculture,_forestry,_and_fishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haiti#Agriculture,_...