The Las Lajas agricultural cooperative near Sonsonate, El Salvador produces coffee and dairy products. It provides employment for 3,000 people in three villages. Enviro-Stewards is helping the cooperative to design and implement sustainable development practices.
- Feeding pulp and husks from the coffee fruit to the dairy cows to reduce wastewater loads and increase milk production,
- Composting cow manure and wastewater treatment solids to generate soil for the coffee plants,
- Use of shade trees increase coffee quality, provide secondary crops, and reduce pesticide usage (due to bird habitats), and
- Reuse of pretreated wastewater to irrigate crops.
Following the Mission of Mercy, the
co-operative established a humanitarian organization called Masada. This organization served as the delivery agent and provided resources for the Mission of Hope 2002. Other social initiatives under development include:
- Providing good wages,
- Providing community resources (agricultural fields, tools, libraries),
- Equipping schools with computers and staffing medical clinics,
- A preschool nutritional program and a youth soccer league,
- Loans to start home businesses, and
- Safe and clean water, air and soil.
The above-described environmental and social measures must be economically sustainable. The world price of coffee has decreased from over $2.6US/lb in June 1997 to less than $0.45US/lb today (due to a surplus of factory farmed (non-shaded) coffee). This price is lower than the production cost of shade grown coffee.
In order to be economically sustainable, the co-op will need to market a higher priced coffee based on superior quality (arabica beans, wet processed, shade grown, less pesticides & fertilizer), their environmental sustainable production practices, and their allocation of a portion of sales to social sustainability initiatives.
They will also need to diversify their agricultural products and develop markets for other products such as their carved furniture (see right).
Idea de viñeta
