The Cane Cutters

My love of chickens and my love for the Island of Hispaniola blossomed at the same time. Farming in New England afforded me a bit of time to travel during the winter and I fell madly in love with the Dominican Republic.  My passion to share a vision in creating a world where we connect with and treat our “food” in a dignified way followed me in my travels. On the Island, I saw on the outskirts of the cane fields the real cost of our sugar through the inhumane conditions in which these workers were subjected.

Segregated in the Batey, the shanty towns where the Haitian Cutters and their families lived, I learned the land and animals are not only ones who suffer in our cold and ruthless quest for cheap food.

This summer, as part of the ongoing, centuries old tensions between the Dominican and Haitian governments, the Dominican Supreme Court ruled to revoke the citizenship of all Haitians immigrants who could not prove their legal status all the way back to 1929.

This has left the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the cane cutters without a country. Born, raised and living in the Dominican Republic, these children of Haitian decent have not rights, no legal way to travel, marry, work or receive an education and as of now, no hope for their future.

Many friends and colleagues have been forwarding me articles speaking to the International outrage over this ruling. The solution being put forth by many in the International community is to boycott travel to the DR and places the blame for the situation solely on the Dominicans. This is not only unfair to the average Dominican citizen, it is unwarranted and continues to absolve the responsibly every one of us plays in this horrific human condition. 

The Dominican government is faced with limited resources on a small Island with millions of people and an extremely unstable situation in bordering Haiti. It does not solely own the cane fields, nor due the resort employees who will be the first to suffer with any kind of significant travel boycott. The Dominican Government is not to blame for the economic reality that sugar that is only available to us through the abuses and inhumane treatment of the workers who cut the cane.

They play part their part, but so do all of us.

As long as we continue to demand full shelves with every imaginable food, at every moment of every day at a hugely subsidized cost, these moral violations of all living beings will continue. Relying on corporations, who are driven only by profit, to provide us with our food, will guarantee the continuation of the atrocities to our land, our animals and our fellow human beings. People are designed to care, but we care in small intimate settings. When we lose a direct connection to our food, we lose our ability to care.

Eating and buying local affords us the opportunity to support a size community for which we can care. Those foods which cannot be supported with the local community should be expensive, rare and hard to obtain. Cheap food, grown harvested, and butchered far away from our everyday experience has made us forget how labor intensive and difficult it is to produce and distribute.

The cane cutters are only one example of the hidden costs in our food. Behind the scenes of this inexpensive commodity is essentially slavery. It always has been.  The plight of the Haitians in the Dominican Republic is not because of a barbaric government, but rather a barbaric world.

We live in a world where we continue to turn a blind eye to our moral compass in our demand for the cheap abundant selection on our grocery shelves.  If we really care about the Haitian sugar cane workers in the Dominican Republic, or the hens in the layer factories, then the change needs to start with us, and our expectations and relationship with our  food.

Proudly Sewn in the Dominican Republic

What better place to produce such a whimsical and fun product then among the big smiles and island music of the Dominican Republic. A look behind the scenes of the chicken attire production reveals a mission of social change and meaningful employment to a group often overlooked and under-served, the women of Puerta Plata!

Nestled in between the mountains and the sea, Puerta Plata is home to beautiful beaches, bustling commerce and bountiful agriculture. Behind the scenes of this perfect climate, picturesque pasture, and spectacular coastline, live the unnoticed women- the widows, single mothers, and the undocumented descendants of the sugar cane workers, immigrants who have crossed the mountains in hopes of finding a better life, escaping the barren land and desperate poverty of Haiti.

I came to the island years ago as most do, to relax and enjoy the luxuries of the resorts. However, as glorious as the resorts are, it was the people, their music, their smiles, their outlook, who made a lasting impression.  The island is welcoming, warm, fun, and full of love. Venturing outside of the resorts opened up a whole new world for me- a world of lasting friendships, epic adventures, and a love for dancing Merengue.

Despite the magic of the tropical paradise, there is no denying the desperate poverty which surrounds far too much of the population. Connivance's America’s poor take for granted such as flushing toilets, running water and reliable electricity are luxurious for only a few. In stark contrast to the endless all you can eat buffets of the resorts, the children of the hotel workers are living on meals of rice, beans and salami.

While listening to friends, volunteers, and ex-pats discuss the woes of the island late into the night, the reoccurring theme was always "no jobs"…the lack of well-paying steady jobs. As a lifelong entrepreneur I always had a dream I would be able to give back to an island that had given me so much and these conversations planted a seed which over the last few years has begun to grow.

Pampered Poultry was born almost by accident; it has blossomed through a collective passion for poultry shared by our customers and by our society’s growing interest in backyard chicken keeping and a collective desire to share in the local food movement and a need to be closer to our food, healthy and more in harmony with nature.

As the business grows here in this country, it has also afforded the opportunity to include the women whom I had met and promised to help on the island. Diana, the owner of Suncamp, and a tireless supporter of the Haitian community in Munoz, has been a partner is getting the idea for a sewing co-op off the ground. She has generously opened her apartments for sewing space, shared her connections in the community and through her foundation has helped to start what we hope will on day grow into a self-sustaining organization that offers it members good pay  and educational opportunities for their children and grandchildren.

Right now the group is small, 6 dedicated women, 3 Dominicans and 3 Haitians working side by side. Pampered Poultry is the primary client, but we are working on bringing other companies into the co-op. We are also supporting the women and their children by offering our customers and their friends the opportunity to purchase the required school uniform, which the women will sew and then donate to a child who would otherwise not have the resources to attend school.

We are working together to create a world where all our friends, including those with feathers, can enjoy a good life- as we all deserved to be pampered!

NPR’s blog “The Salt” recently did a story about chicken diapers, in which I was interviewed. The headline was “Urban Farming Spawns Accessory Lines.” It was a light-hearted article which quietly poked fun at the notion of diapering a chicken…a fair criticism to be sure. The comments overwhelming indicated NPR readers felt pampering poultry was just another indicator of America’s consumer based insanity.

Now, surprisingly, I’m inclined to be the first to agree. In my personal quest for simplicity in an agrarian based lifestyle, the fact I’m encouraging and promoting such decadent frivolousness as clothing for what should be food seems contradictory.  After all, half the world is starving and I’m marketing, as the article says “lingerie for your chicken.”

However, the Backyard Chicken Movement I believe is a revolution of sorts. And just like any revolution, it takes all kinds to make the kind of impact that truly brings forth change. The end game I believe in all of this chicken craze is to help our society collectively “wake up” and understand the inherit evil in our current food systems and the crimes we are all collectively committing in the blind eye we are continuing to afford the practice of factory farming.

All kinds of people with different agendas and different solutions are currently working together (although perhaps unconsciously) toward what has become in the last 10 years the Backyard Chicken Movement.

Animal activists work hard at exposing the horrors, the dreadful conditions in poultry houses where millions of birds are kept and workers wear gas masks when they enter, to the artificial solutions pumped into the meat etc, etc. Breeders are working at saving heritage breeds and promoting qualities that do not focus exclusively on meat or egg production. Political activists are changing zoning laws and city ordinances allowing small backyard flocks to flourish in environments outside of traditional farms. And I, along with others, spreading the word that chickens are can more than just dinner…they can be a valued part of the family. The result, America is starting to listen.

Anything that starts to awaken the cultural consciousness to bring us closer to nature and the source of our food, I believe is playing a key role in the end game, the elimination of factory farms for all animals.

By presenting poultry fashion to the market, I truly believe I am supporting those who treat their chickens as pets, but I’m also helping to bring awareness to non-poultry lovers that chickens are more than a breast or an egg. All chickens deserve more humane treatment then what it is afforded them in commercial poultry operations, where they are not a bird, a part of nature, but purely a commodity. While part of our lives, even if their fate is to be our dinner, all poultry deserves to be pampered.