On Earth Day - Behind the Promise of Island Romance

Our team in Haiti has just launched a new campaign for its natural products, promising health and beauty. And while we want everyone to be beautiful and smell nice, our primary purpose in making and selling products is to help subsistence farms not only grow enough to eat but also earn the money they need to buy what can’t be grown, like shoes, clothes, schooling, etc. That means growing something someone is willing to pay money for, i.e., growing a cash crop. If we do that, the economics of supply and demand kick in, and voilà, there’s money in the pockets of poor farmers. If only it were that easy, but it’s not.

In Haiti, where the economy is worse than lousy, the road to “voilà” is a string of roadblocks that have to be reckoned with. What can be cultivated by hand on ten acres of difficult land that someone will want to buy? Where does a poor farmer find the means to start? How is a poor farmer going to find a buyer and a fair price? How is a poor farmer going to grow enough on his little plot to meet a buyer's needs? We created JP nineteen years ago to walk the dirt tracks of Haiti in search of answers to these and other questions. Today, it is delivering income to small farms by making products from what they grow. Our work is puny in the face of the need, but we remain hard at work building an island romance between commerce and Haiti’s small farms.

Take care and stay in touch,

Rob Fisher

Executive Director of JP/Partner For People And Place, Inc.