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Building Capacity: San Pedro Masahuat, El Salvador

PADF, in collaboration with the Cuscatlán Latino Center (CLC) and CONFRAS, a federation of Salvadoran farming cooperatives, began its first transnational initiative in El Salvador with an agricultural processing plant in San Pedro Masahuat, in the department of La Paz. The project was designed to teach the participants new ways to diversify their agricultural production and cultivate crops using organic growing methods.

The initiative began when PADF sought immigrant partners in the United States to join them in economic development efforts in El Salvador. Members of the Cuscatlán Latino Center in the Washington, D.C. area were attracted by the idea and decided to work with PADF. They contacted CONFRAS in El Salvador who agreed to donate a parcel of land in the area and their time to manage the project. PADF contributed $50,000 from a USAID grant and CLC donated $10,000 obtained in part from the “Disfruta y Ayuda” Budweiser Campaign and from their own fundraising activities.

Working together, the three partner organizations provided training and opportunities to 48 local participants and their families. The local participants learned organic methods to cultivate the new products and learned the importance of diversifying production to increase revenues. They processed and commercialized their products within El Salvador, including loroco, passion fruit, green chilies, jellies, and other goods, and have long term goals of exporting products to the nostalgia market in Washington, D.C.
As Sonia Ayala, a local beneficiary noted in a Washington Post article, “We are moving forward. Our lives changed with the support of our friends in the United States.”

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