In Haiti, Francois Merilus farms peanuts in his bare feet. He looks at his field. The land is so dry, he will probably harvest barely any peanuts this year. Haiti is facing a terrible drought. People are starving. They need peanuts to live. America plans to send 500 tons of peanuts over to help them. But Mr. Merilus doesn’t want this help. He says, “No thank you!” Why would Mr. Merilus and other hungry people in Haiti say no to help?

They have good reasons. Farmers in Haiti work all year growing peanuts. When harvest comes, they sell them to make a living. But guess what could happen when tons of free peanuts suddenly show up in Haiti? Maybe no one will want to buy the ones Mr. Merilus grew! Maybe he will not get paid for his work and he will have no money to live. Mr. Merilus and other Haitians want their country to be self-sufficient. They want Haitians to grow their own food and sell it. That way, they could live on their earnings. If they could do that, would they need other countries to send food to them? Wouldn’t they be able to store their own food in case of drought?

Many people signed a petition asking U.S. President Obama to stop “dumping” peanuts on Haiti. But the U.S. government and the U.N. food agency aren’t budging. They say they are only sending a small amount of peanuts to Haiti—only 1.4 percent of all the peanuts Haiti produces in a year. The peanuts will go to kids as morning snacks in schools. In Haiti, three in ten kids are sick because they don’t have enough food to eat. The U.S. government says the peanut delivery won’t change the economy. But it might determine whether many kids in Haiti live or die.

Peanuts aren’t the only thing the United States sends to Haiti. Haiti has also received billions of dollars from the United States. So many gifts might not be helping the people in Haiti. They might just make things worse.