Maine Organic Farmers Visit Sistered Salvadoran Farmers

MOFGA’s El Salvador Sistering Committee maintains a relationship between MOFGA (the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association) and two Salvadoran grassroots organizations—CCR and CORDES—working toward sustainable agriculture. The committee explores issues such as organic certification, free trade, marketing, etc., that affect farmers in both countries.

Several delegations from Maine have visited El Salvador, and delegates from El Salvador have come to Maine to tour farms and participate in MOFGA’s Common Ground Country Fair, held each fall at MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center in Unity, Maine. In 2003, Juvelina Palma of CCR even delivered a keynote speech at the Fair. (See here)

Each April, our committee hosts an Empty Bowl Supper—our major fundraiser for the year. Dinner guests enjoy a hearty meal, listen to local musicians and take home beautiful, handcrafted bowls made by Maine artisans.

In February 2010, eight of us traveled to El Salvador on our most recent delegation. We met with representatives of the CCR and CORDES and visited Bangor’s sister city of Carasque.  We heard about the threat that gold mining would present to farming (by using and potentially contaminating large amounts of land and water) and about the Funes government’s support of local and organic agriculture. Numerous former CORDES employees now work for the government and are laying the groundwork for the transition to organic agriculture.

For more information about our committee, please visit our website or go to www.mofga.org click on the Programs tab, and click on the MOFGA/El Salvador Sistering Project link. We’ll be posting a detailed article about our February delegation there soon.

–Jean English, MOFGA

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