Seeds of Hope

By Kelley Burns, Grassroots Solidarity Education Coordinator

"Work won't kill you, but not eating will." Maria Cecilia Salinas began working when she was thirteen years old.  She says, "I worked in the fields; I went to the capital."  Now she is a forty-five year-old single mother of three boys.  She is taller than most Salvadoran women, her body stretched, thin and wiry as she pulls her dark hair back and fixes it behind her head.  Maria Cecilia, along with others in the San Vicente region, received a small loan through SHARE Foundation's Semillas de Esperanza, or Seeds of Hope, Local Development Program.  Seeds of Hope combines micro-credit loans with workshops on organic farming to offer an alternative means of support, if not survival, for El Salvador's poorest residents.  The loans hover in the area of $200.00 - $300.00 and are used for for buying seeds, renting machinery, and in some cases renting a plot of land.  The workshops train the participants in the basics of organic farming.

Sixto René Díaz says he stopped using chemical fertilizers and insecticides five years ago when he began to have liver problems that were attributed to his exposure to harmful chemicals.  He said he tried growing crops the first year without using any kind of fertilizer, and he lost nearly his entire crop to worms.  He started asking around and got some tips from different people on ways to grow crops more naturally.  He spent the previous day at a workshop on organic farming techniques.  He says he is excited about what he has learned, and he also feels encouraged that there are others out there doing the same thing.  Others in the group say that when they first started using organic farming methods, people laughed at them.  They didn't believe you could grow crops without using heavy-duty chemical pesticides and fertilizers.  They knew the chemicals were not good for them, but they had always been told it was the only way to farm productively.  Blanca Estela Ramirez admits she was not convinced at first either, but because she had success raising cattle with the ACAMG Cooperative, another SHARE partner, she was willing to give organic farming methods a try.  "I believe it now," she says.  The beneficiaries of SHARE's Seeds of Hope Program say that sometimes it seems too good to be true.  Now they know that they can grow their food without poisoning themselves; not in the growing, nor in the eating.

Don Lucio Porfilio Hernández walks with us through his cornfield.  He has recently "folded" the tall corn plants over so that water will not collect in the ears and cause mold to grow on the corn, a technique he learned in the workshop.  He explains that once the plant is mature, it will continue to grow like that.  He shows us bean plants that he planted between the rows of corn.  He tells me that the corn and bean plants are "good friends" and they they will grow well together; the corn stalks will provide structure for the climbing bean plants.  "You can't do this if you harvest with a machine," he says.  Instead, he works the field with his son.  When the corn and beans are harvested they will keep part of the yield for their families and sell the rest. 

Don Lucio and Esmeralda Villalta, a member of CRIPDES-San Vicente, discuss the bean and corn market.  He calculates the figures in his head and most of them come out pretty low.  When CAFTA dropped tariffs on agricultural imports, it put small Salvadoran farmers in direct competition with imports from the United States.  With the aid of US government subsidies, the industrial farmers in the United States are now able to sell their products, many of which are genetically-modified, for less than native products, even after adjusting for the transportation costs.  Naturally, Salvadoran farmers stopped growing and began buying.  Recently the rise in fuel costs has caused food prices to skyrocket.  But now, when El Salvador most needs local growers and local products, there are few to be found.  Don Lucio tells me that a lot of people do not think it is worth it in the end to work so hard for so little.  "But," he says, "It has it's advantages.  This way, my family gets to eat."

By providing small loans and workshops on organic farming methods, SHARE Foundation's Local Development Program is supporting more sustainable livelihoods in some of El Salvador's poorest regions.  With your help, SHARE Foundation can support more local farmers' initiatives throughout El Salvador.  To learn more about SHARE's Seeds of Hope Program and how you can support local Salvadoran farmers and families, click here!