Ten-thousand Haitian peasants have marched to protest Monsanto's gift of seed to the Haitian Government.

In May Monsanto announced that it had delivered 400 tonnes of hybrid seed to Haiti, as part of a project funded and administered by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). According to Monsanto, the seed is not GE, but a non-GE hybrid. However, the company has confirmed that farmers will pay the Haitian Government for the seed and they will not be permitted to save their seed, meaning they will have to purchase new seed next season. 

The American Government has a history of interference with Haiti's agricultural sector. In 1991, the country's president was removed in a US-supported military coup. As a condition of his return, the US, IMF and the World Bank required removal of Haiti's farmer protecion subsidies, and Haiti's domestic rice industry was decimated. In 2007, USAID published a report on the "prospects for solid and liquid biofeuls in Haiti" and the Inter-American Development Bank's Haiti strategy states that removing Haiti's "obstacles to export of agricultural products are a top priority."

This information was sourced from La Via Campesina, the International Peasant Movement