We say that every square meter of land that is worked with agro-ecology is a liberated square meter. We see it as a tool to transform farmers’ social and economic conditions. We see it as a tool of liberation from the unsustainable capitalist agricultural model that oppresses farmers.

We in the Organic Agriculture Movement see the soil as Mother Earth, a living organism, which gives birth to all kinds of life. Mother Earth is agonizing, and needs to be rescued. Even a new small plot of land under organic management is part of the effort to revive her.

We now have around 3,700 small local producers who are educated and working on organic agriculture in El Salvador. We’re just about one percent of all small producers, but 15 or 20 years ago we had no organic agriculture.

Our territory is made up of just 20,000 square kilometers, with 70 percent of the territory dedicated to agriculture. The challenge is to keep winning over new farmer families that will re-convert to organic farming and liberate the land.

For 60 years, Salvadoran peasants have been marginalized and impoverished by the agro-industrial model [chemically dependent, large-scale, corporate-controlled agribusiness], which is based on resource and human exploitation. Today, peasants in El Salvador, as throughout Latin America, are living in a system of semi-slavery and are subjected to expensive and toxic technology that doesn’t belong to them.

People are facing some very serious health problems. Prolonged exposure to pesticides and other toxins in our food is causing low renal function, cancer, and diabetes.

Another problem we face as a result of this system of production is the extreme degradation of our natural resources. El Salvador has the most soil degradation in all of Central America. Eighty percent of our land is degraded and 99 percent of our rivers are contaminated.

According to some geneticists, biologists and anthropologists, Central America was one of the first places that started practicing agriculture, in about 7,000 BC. The Mayan civilization was one of the pioneers of agriculture. We have incredible historical wealth regarding their practices in El Salvador, which need to be rescued. One is the Mayan system of production known as the milpa [small bio-organic gardens involving crop rotation and family control]. For thousands of years, the milpa guaranteed food sovereignty and healthy foods for civilization.

This model was disrupted by several historical events. The Spanish invasion 500 years ago destroyed the entire Mayan tradition and production model based on food sovereignty. Local communities were forced to stop producing their own food and to start producing food that was of interest to the Spanish colony.