During the half century from the 1930s to the 1980s, Haiti, the poorest country of Latin America, experienced a gradual decline in the standard of living, a deterioration in the condition of the land – with an alarming growth of soil erosion throughout the country – and a dramatic growth of its population, from 2.5 to approximately 6 million. Despite occasional efforts by Haitian governments and ambitious schemes sponsored by an endless procession of foreign missions, little was done to halt the country's decline. Indeed, very often the results of these foreign interventions was positively harmful. In most cases the improvements required were not in the individual interests of the peasants and would only work if undertaken as co-operative enterprises among all the landholders in a particular area. Haitian governments were generally unable or unwilling to give the kind of guarantees which would make such projects viable.

Throughout these years Haiti remained a largely agricultural economy, producing food for local consumption together with a few export crops. The principal cash crop was coffee. Efforts to encourage large-scale production of other crops such as sugar, cotton and sisal, met with only limited success. Most manufactured consumer goods were imported, principally from the United States. Attempts to develop copper and bauxite mining achieved no more than modest results. From the late 1960s there was a rapid growth in light manufacturing industries and assembly plants, situated mostly in and around the capital. These accounted for well over half the country's foreign earnings in 1985 when Haiti enjoyed the distinction of being the world's largest producer of baseballs.