El Salvador: Oxfam beneficiaries share their harvest with poor communities

Between December 2006 and January 2007, several earthquakes shook San Lorenzo in El Salvador. Oxfam helped a small group of farmers to rehabilitate their crops. Today, they share their first harvest with poor communities.

Assuring food supplies

Between December 2006 and January 2007, a series of 900 earthquakes shook the region of San Lorenzo, destroying 90% of the houses. Oxfam America, through their partner Fundación para el Desarrollo (FUNDESA), gave help to 60 farmers by means of a food security project, providing seeds for the corn harvest, fertilizers, insecticides, and technical training among other things. José Alfredo Zuñiga, one beneficiary of the project, explained the need for a food security project where the houses were most affected: “Those who invested in their houses (to repair them or to buy provisional houses), lost everything. We did not have anything to work with," José stated. “I almost resigned to leave my lands without farming. But when the people of FUNDESA arrived and helped us, we were motivated again to keep working.”

In addition to the donation of products to sow and farm, the project included organizing a program with the farmers for technical assistance and training about the use of fertilizers and seeds, the correct handling of the crop after harvesting, the storage of basic grains, and organic production.

Solidarity between poor communities

In September 2007, the coordinators of the farmers group were invited to a forum about water in Apaneca, organized by PRO-VIDA. There they met two coordinators of La Cancha hostel, where 200 families lived since June 2005, after a landslide devastated their whole community and they lost everything. Until now there’s been no solution for the situation. 200 families lived together in hovels made of metallic plates, of 16 square meters for each family, on a plot of land the size of a soccer field. When they saw the situation in which these families live, the farmers from San Lorenzo made a decision.

“The hostel coordinators invited us to see the situation they had to face," explained José Alfredo. “We, beneficiaries of a project, visited the hostel, and when we left, there was nothing to say. We clearly knew that we wanted to help those people. Then, with 200 pounds (about 100 kilos) from each of the producers in our community, we could contribute with something.”

With a total of 12,000 pounds (about 6,000 kilos), the 60 producers were able to help more than 250 families in La Cancha hostel, San Luis Herradura community, Guaymango community and some marginalized camps in San Salvador. “We didn’t feel satisfied with what we had achieved until now. We plan to keep on with it. Maybe we cannot give as much help as we have received, but we will always provide the seed from now on,” comments José Alfredo. “If we receive, we have to give.”

By Tjarda Muller, Oxfam America