Sugarcane production has more than doubled in El Salvador over the last several decades, especially in the eastern region surrounding the Bay of Jiquilisco. The department of Usulután, particularly in the Lower Lempa zone where our partners the Mangrove Association and La Coordinadora del Bajo Lempa are based, has experienced the greatest growth rates since […]
Local Seed and Producers Win Out in Face of Dubious U.S. Criticism
Inside U.S. Trade calls into question U.S. criticism of Salvadoran seed procurement process; transnational agribusinesses deny having major stake in issue. In 2014, EcoViva advocated on behalf of corn and bean producers in El Salvador who supply the Salvadoran government with seed for the popular and successful Family Agriculture Program (PAF), a program that since […]
Viva Fund: Cara’s Story
We’re in the fifth week of the Viva Fund campaign to support youth leaders in El Salvador. This post was contributed by Cara Hagan, a recent graduate of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey who traveled to El Salvador with EcoViva in March. She is serving as an ambassador for the fifth annual Viva Fund. […]
Farmer cooperatives, not Monsanto, supply El Salvador with seed
In the face of overwhelming competition skewed by the rules of free trade, farmers in El Salvador have managed to beat the agricultural giants like Monsanto and Dupont to supply local corn seed to thousands of family farmers. Local seed has consistently outperformed the transnational product, and farmers helped develop El Salvador’s own domestic seed […]
Community Members and Engineers Team up for Solar
What do you get when you mix bright minds, a little sweat, and lots of sunshine? Simple: innovative community-led solutions for a sustainable future. During Thanksgiving week, residents of the community of San Hilario and engineers from the University of Oklahoma teamed up to harness the power of the sun and expand learning opportunities for […]
