4% Permaculture Institute of El Salvador, Central America

IPES was founded in September of 2002 by small farmers who wanted to stop the progress of destruction to their environment and way of life. Much of the land on which small farmers subsist is poisoned and eroded, and deforestation is a major problem country-wide. Every week a child dies in El Salvador due to poisoning from agro-chemicals.

Over the past five years, IPES has built a network of subsistence farmers who work with ecological farming methods. In some of El Salvador’s most impoverished communities, IPES teaches community leaders how to protect and rebuild their soil, ensure food security and sovereignty, protect genetic biodiversity, build with local materials, improve drinking water and sanitation facilities, prepare for climate change, and empower women. Their objective is to strengthen organization and knowledge within rural communities so that they can identify their own needs and develop practical ecological solutions with minimal use of external resources.

The communities are not ‘sold’ the permaculture ideology. Instead, they approach IPES, having seen and heard about their work and the benefits it has brought to their friends and neighbours. They don’t get hand outs, just training on how to farm in a way that benefits them and their environment. Many of the staff members are farmers who participated in the training early on, and the Institute now has a queue of communities waiting to get involved.