NEWS FROM HAITI

FEBRUARY 2022

Getting to Market

When I look over the mountains where we work in Haiti, I see dots and lines. The dots are the farms where families are growing crops to make a living. The lines are the footpaths and dirt tracks that farmers take to get their crops to market.

Growing and selling are the heartbeats of a farm economy....

but its pulse is weak here and the families who depend on it are flagging. To gain strength they have to produce more sustainable cash crops, but they also have to sell more, which means getting those crops to the right market at the right time.

Problem is most families don't have a pack animal, let alone a truck, so they shoulder their goods and walk for hours. Or they hire a burro or pay to ride a truck. The time it takes or the money it costs steers them to the closest village market. Unfortunately, little markets in the hinterland are not good places to sell high value crops, like cashews or honey. Even if buyers are found, the price they'll pay will be only a fraction of the crops' worth. Farmers know they are losing out, but don’t have much of a choice.

That's about to change. We are currently setting up a service that will bring farmers' high value crops to a sales-distribution depot that we are building on the main highway that connects the cities of northern Haiti.

Cashews, pineapples, yams, eucalyptus, jatrofa and other high earning crops will soon get the best price and the farmers who grew them will take more money home.

A stable increase in income is what puts families on a sustainable trajectory out of extreme poverty. It is simple economics applied with compassion. We are connecting the dots.

With best regards and gratitude for your concern,

Rob Fisher, Executive Director

November 2021

What is it?

Dear Friends, 

I hope my news from Haiti finds you happy and well.

To the question....its name is Anacardium occidentale, the Cashew. But looking odd is only the beginning of the story, because the cashew we love to eat is locked in a "Brinks truck" under that yellow fruit. It is contained in a bitter seed coat inside a concrete-hard shell filled with caustic liquid that will burn your skin. Nature has gone to great lengths to protect this nut from the lunch crowd.... but it is, after all, the culmination of one of its organic value-chains. What we’re doing in the mountains of Haiti is hitching a ride on that value-chain. 

For Nature and for us....everything is about creating value to support life. Nature does it by taking sunlight and distilling its energy into plants. We do it by helping farmers cultivate those plants and apply ingenuity to increase their crops' economic value. We have helped small farmers across Haiti do this with the Jatrofa tree, using its seeds to produce soap and other products.

Now, we’re doing this with the Cashew tree. The goal is the same - to use it to bring economic security to families drowning in poverty, and recover the productive value of the land they farm. The cashew does this well. It can grow in a variety of situations, it protects the soil, it produces food that has more protein than other nuts, and it is a topnotch cash crop. People everywhere love cashews and pay fancy prices.

For several years we have been helping families plant cashew trees from our nursery on their little farms and they are starting to harvest them...but the job is not done. Value must be added to their harvest before it goes to market - to get the best return. At this point families can get only a fraction of the cashew's full market value, because they do not have the means to efficiently extract the edible nut from the "Brinks truck". They must sell to middlemen who take most of the return. What we need to do now is acquire the processing equipment that will allow families to get the full economic return for their harvests. What remains to be done is to acquire the processing equipment.

Good farm economics lifts families from poverty through trade, not aid. It is an organic, sustainable and respectful way to help people in need and a way to recover the productive value of their farms. It is not a quick fix but its results last. It is what we do. With your support, people can hitch a ride to a better life with an odd looking nut.

SUMMER 2021

We remember President Moise of Haiti

President Moise visited JP and was a great supporter of JP. He was a good customer too. He took an interest in both our agricultural and economic work. His administration undertook a major public works project in Northeast Haiti to improve water supply and transportation, which have benefitted the communities we work with. . JP’s program is contributing to the longevity of a recently completed water supply reservoir by reforesting its watershed.

We will miss President Moise’s encouragement and offer his family our condolences.

MOTHERS’ DAY 2021

When I look into the faces of these women from the village of Patasson, I see the unrelenting worry that comes with making sure their families are okay - today, next week, next year. Come September, a woman's children won't be going to school unless she finds the money to send them. Her family's harvest of peanuts may come in in time, but she worries what if it falls short and doesn't fetch enough at market? If her kids can't go to school, she worries they'll never get ahead. And, where is she going to find the money for food next week or for the pills her aging parent needs?

You see, it is the woman here who manages the finances of the household. The men work hard but it falls to the women to make ends meet - selling in the market, buying what's necessary, saving for upcoming expenses, dealing with unexpected calamities. In a place as poor as Patasson, that's a tough assignment. A woman here is under pressure, a constant stress she bears alone.

But, bring her into a group of her peers and give her a financial asset to manage and things can get better. Last Sunday, which was Mother's Day in Haiti, that happened. The women of Patasson came together at Jatrofa Projenou to hear and support one another and to launch a women's business venture. Each was given a goat.

In their remote village with no access to a bank, a goat can be a savings account for a woman and an investment too. Its value increases over time, and when bred with the goats of the other women in the group, a woman increases her financial independence and the group develops an economic asset that benefits the whole community.

Like Jatrofa Projenou's reforestation program, which succeeds by addressing the needs of farmers as well as planting trees, our women's program is developing Patasson's economy by addressing the needs of its women.

The worry in those faces? I suspect it'll persist. Worry seems to be what mothers do.

earth day 2021

This morning I'm thinking of a yam vine climbing up through a forest tree to catch the sun to nourish its root in the moist soil below. It's a better vision of what farming should look like in the mountains of Haiti than the Iowa cornfield with its tractor-plowed rows of chemically subsidized plants.

It is the vision that guides our work in Haiti. The tree was planted two years ago and the yam along with it. It looks a tangle, but it is ecologically delivering food and income to families who depend on the land. It is sustainable.

On this Earth Day, like all other days of the year, our agronomists, all Haitian, are up in the mountains helping their countrymen plant trees and food crops together - to protect their land, feed themselves, and earn livelihoods outside of poverty.

In the face of global problems it is puny, but it is what we can do and it is what needs to be done.

I hope the tree and the yam inspires you to act sustainably, no matter how small.

november 2020

No one would ever recommend this land is for agriculture, but hike this landscape in Haiti and you'll find thousands of little farms, where families grow food on land steeper than a flight of stairs. In the US land like this would go for hiking or maybe be dotted with second homes, because there are millions of other acres better suited for agriculture. Not so in Haiti. It was not dealt a big canasta hand of landscapes like the US. It just got mountains and mountains beyond mountains.

A thousand years ago the Ainu called this land Ayiti (land of mountains)

Today, thousands of farmers here have no choice but to play the cards they were dealt, which means difficult, hillside farming. Can Haiti feed itself with this land? Not today - it remains cripplingly dependent on imported food and its farmers are burdened by poverty. But when they are able to improve their livelihoods and practice sustainable agriculture, it is possible.

Francis of Assisi said, “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

Make a donation today to help Haiti's farming families make that journey. Your donation will put Partner For People & Place by their side to help. It is possible to grow more food to reduce hunger, protect the land for generations to come and reduce the poverty that limits what people can achieve. This is a noble cause. Please join us.

summer 2020

MASTER BEEKEEPER AT JP TEACHES BEEKEEPING

Marten is JP’s beekeeper and for him beekeeping is a lot more than bees and boxes.  He teaches local people an agricultural science that increases the yields of crops and produces products and good income.  

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