The Confederation of Federations of the Salvadoran Agrarian Reform (CONFRAS) considers that this year there will be a decrease in the national production of basic grains and vegetables, given the increased cost of inputs for agricultural production and little government support. They say that this, in turn, will generate more unemployment, poverty, hunger and greater emigration of the rural population. “The increase in prices of agricultural inputs and gas is generating a drop in productivity and reduction in cultivated areas. If this problem is not solved, there will be an expanded food crisis. With the increase in the cost of living in the country during 2022, poverty rates, which have been increasing since 2020, will skyrocket even more” said Alejandra Góchez, from the CONFRAS board of directors.
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El Salvador: News & Updates
El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. The US-backed civil war, which erupted after the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980, lasted 12 years (1980-92), killing 70,000 people and forcing 20% of the nation’s five million people to seek refuge in the US.
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Prosecutors in El Salvador have charged the former president Alfredo Cristiani over the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests that sparked international outrage. Prosecutors also announced charges against a dozen other people, including former military officers, over the massacre. The list of charges will apparently include murder, terrorism and conspiracy. The attorney general, Rodolfo Delgado, wrote on his Twitter account that his office “is determined to go after those accused of ordering this regrettable and tragic event”.
El Salvador has released another woman imprisoned for aggravated homicide who after suffering an obstetric emergency was accused of aborting her pregnancy in a country where abortion under any circumstances is banned. The woman, who activists helping her identified only as Elsy, had served more than a decade of a 30-year sentence. She was the fifth woman released before completion of her sentence since late December of last year. In the past 20 years, El Salvador has prosecuted 181 women who suffered obstetric emergencies. A local rights organization has succeeded in freeing 61 of them since 2009.
As a candidate, President Biden spoke out forcefully against the cruelty, xenophobia, and racism against immigrants and other communities of color stirred by President Trump and other leaders. As president, President Biden from Day One made bold commitments to build an immigration system that is fair, humane, and that “welcomes immigrants, keeps families together, and allows people across the country – both newly arrived immigrants and people who have lived here for generations – to more fully contribute to this country.” In this report, the We Are Home campaign assesses Biden’s Year One on immigration by looking at his most high-profile promises and longstanding priorities for the coalition.
A new study shows the impact the warmer climate will have on cultivating coffee, avocados and cashews, and on the farmers doing so. Of the three crops, coffee will be hit hardest by warming: The study model foresees an overall decline by 2050 in the number of regions where it could grow. For cashews and avocados, results were more complicated. Certain growing regions would experience declines in those crops while others, such as the southern United States, would likely find more land better suited to tropical food crops like cashews and avocados. By predicting decades in advance how agriculture will change, scientists can help farmers know what to expect, and can advise policy makers on how to encourage farmers to use more efficient growing methods like cover crops to prevent erosion or planting new crops when needed.
The National Roundtable against Metallic Mining in El Salvador, a coalition of environmental and social movement organizations, universities, water justice activists, faith communities, human rights defenders, and others, issued a warning last week regarding the intention of the Bukele administration to permit metal mining in El Salvador, reversing the ban passed unanimously in 2017. As background, in 2017, El Salvador became the first country in the world to pass a total ban on metal mining. The historic legislation was the achievement of over a decade of community organizing and education, led principally by rural women, and came at the cost of violent harassment, threats, and even the assassination of community leaders involved in the struggle. Four years later, under the Bukele administration, environmental and social movement organizations are again on alert over the possible return of metal mining in El Salvador. “We are not being alarmists," said Omar Serrano from the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA). "There are signs indicating that [the administration] is thinking of returning to mining, even if they do not say so publicly.”
On December 21, 2021, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador approved a Water Resources Law that had been widely criticized by environmental and popular movement organizations on the grounds that it includes various privatizing aspects and excludes community efforts to guarantee the right to water for the most vulnerable populations. The government introduced the bill on June 18, 2021, shelving the previously proposed General Water Law, which had been under discussion for three years in the Environmental Commission. and thus erasing more than a decade of debate and consensus among social and environmental organizations. After new the bill was introduced, the majority party, New Ideas, formed an ad-hoc commission ostensibly to study it; however, none of the proposals from environmental or social movement organizations were incorporated into the bill. These organizations have thus denounced the government's bill, arguing that it establishes mechanisms to monopolize water use and institutionalizes water injustice.
