Sustainable
Development
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. |
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Environmentally
Sustainable Development:
- 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.
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Socially
Sustainable Development:
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:
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- 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.
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Economically
Sustainable Development:
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).
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Idea de viñeta
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