MOFGA's El Salvador Sistering Project maintains a relationship between MOFGA and two Salvadoran grassroots organizations working toward sustainable agriculture.

The committee explores issues such as organic certification, free trade, marketing, etc., that affect farmers in both countries.

Several delegations from Maine have visited El Salvador, and delegates from El Salvador have come to Maine to tour farms and participate in the Common Ground Country Fair.

Each April, the El Salvador Sistering Committee hosts an Empty Bowl Supper in Belfast to raise funds for the ongoing collaborative work. Dinner guests make donations to the efforts, enjoy a hearty meal, and take home beautiful, handcrafted bowls made by Maine artisans. We are always looking for donations of handmade bowls (including seconds!) from potters. If you have bowls to donate, contact Karen Volckhausen. Thanks!

Information for Prospective El Salvador Sistering Project Committee Members

Reports from Past MOFGA Delegations to El Salvador

The MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee, which partners with Salvadoran organizations similar to MOFGA, raffled two CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares, with the winners drawn at MOFGA's annual meeting at the Maine Agricultural Trades Show in Augusta on Jan. 8, 2013.

One ticket was drawn for Cheryl Wixson's Kitchen and another for a CSA share of the winner's choice, selected from the farms listed here.

• Crystal Spring Farm, Brunswick
  
• Willow Pond Farm, Sabattus
  
• King Hill Farm, Penobscot
  
• Sheepscot Valley Multi-Farm CSA, Whitefield
  
• Morning Dew Farm, Newcastle
  
• Frith Farm, Scarborough
  
• Small Wonder Farm, Bowdoinham
  
• Hatchet Cove Farm, Warren
  
• Cheryl Wixson's Kitchen, Bangor
  
• Happy Town Farm, Orland
• New Beat Farm, Knox
• Village Farm, Freedom
• After the Fall, Montville

Community Supported Agriculture enterprises receive payment (or in this case, raffle winners' names) up front and CSA members receive products over a period of months in return.

For more information about our committee, call the MOFGA office at 207-568-4142 and ask for Jaco.

MOFGA's El Salvador Sistering Committee will host its 12th annual Empty Bowl Supper on Saturday, April 27th, at 6:00 p.m., at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Miller Street in Belfast.

If you would like to buy a handsome, Maine-made bowl, have a delicious meal, and support the MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee's work - all for just $15 ($35 maximum for families) - come to this celebration.

MOFGA needs handmade bowls for this event. Anyone wishing to donate bowls for the Empty Bowl Supper should contact Jean English at jenglish@tidewater.net.

Each year MOFGA serves this supper to raise funds for the El Salvador Committee's work. Those funds have helped bring Salvadorans to Maine to tour farms, meet with community organizers and agricultural officials, and participate in the Common Ground Country Fair. Proceeds also have helped fund events relating to the Central American Free Trade Agreement for MOFGA's sistering organization in El Salvador, and supported work to prevent mining companies from destroying Salvadoran mountains and agricultural lands.

Empty Bowl Suppers started in Michigan in 1990, when a high school art teacher helped his students raise funds to support a food drive. A class project to make ceramic bowls for a fundraising meal evolved. Guests were served a simple meal of soup and bread, and were invited to keep the bowl as a reminder of hunger in the world. Subsequently, Empty Bowls developed into a project to support food banks, soup kitchens and other organizations that fight hunger. The Imagine/RENDER Group, a 501(c)3 organization, promotes the project, and Empty Bowl events raise millions of dollars worldwide to help combat hunger.

The public is welcome to join MOFGA for delicious soups, breads and desserts and to socialize at this event. Tickets are $15 ($35 maximum for families) and will be available at the door. Participants will take home a beautiful bowl, handcrafted and donated by a Maine potter. For more information, please call MOFGA at 207-568-4142.

The MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee is Turning Gold into Environmental Justice.

Help us stop Canadian and US mining companies from strip mining gold from Salvadorans' hills! This is a David and Goliath issue, a global showdown. The mining companies will benefit by making huge profits as the price of gold and other precious metals continues to rise. The communities will suffer and could become unlivable as they face contaminated air, soil and water.

According to mining expert Keith Slack, producing one gold wedding ring creates 20 tons of waste. That waste - cyanide-treated rock that contains toxic metals and gives off sulfuric acids - can contaminate soils and groundwater forever.

Studies cited in a document produced by the Association for Economic and Social Development in El Salvador show the effects of gold mining in the Valle de Siria in Honduras. See photo at right.

Since the initiation of gold mining there, 19 of 23 rivers have dried up and a once agriculturally rich area has been converted to desert. Read a related article from The Guardian (U.K.).

The Canadian mining company Pacific Rim plans to pursue gold mining in the department of Cabanas, El Salvador, despite widespread opposition.

Studies predict that mining would affect 60 percent of the food production in that area.

Already communities have been torn apart by this issue, environmentalists have been killed, and lawsuits have been brought against the Salvadoran government under CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement). The Round Table against Mining in El Salvador has fought tirelessly against this threat for years and is now trying to get a law prohibiting mining in its country passed in the Salvadoran legislature - the first such law ever. Its efforts were recognized in 2009 when it was awarded the International Human Rights Prize by the Institute for Policy Studies.

Since 78 percent of gold production goes to jewelry, recycling some of that bling can help reduce the demand for new gold mines, and, at the same time, help fund opposition to gold mining in MOFGA's sistering communities in El Salvador. Recycling gold and other precious metals also creates a new market for responsible and fair trade metal products.

We are asking MOFGA members and friends if they can stand with us and donate unwanted gold and silver. Let us convert your stale memorabilia or something more precious into a potent force for economic and environmental justice. All proceeds will go to the anti-mining campaign in El Salvador and to the National US-El Salvador Sister Cities, which works hard to support the campaign's efforts. Please consider donating a gold or silver item you own to the Turn Your Gold into Environmental Justice campaign.

Contact Jaco at MOFGA for details - jacomijn@mofga.org.

or 207-568-4142.

For more information on the environmental and human rights effects of gold mining visit http://elsalvadorsolidarity.org.

MOFGA's El Salvador Sistering Committee works closely with the U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities Network, a grass-roots organization of U.S. citizens and residents who have ongoing partnerships with small rural communities in El Salvador. Those partnerships began in 1986 as a citizen-based response to the U.S. intervention in El Salvador’s civil war. Today, twenty sister cities from across the U.S. are paired with Salvadoran communities in six of El Salvador’s fourteen provinces. The Association for the Development of El Salvador, or CRIPDES, facilitates these efforts. Sister Cities works to connect and strengthen movements for social justice in the U.S. and El Salvador by sharing experiences, support, and accompaniment. The organization strives to build a new kind of globalization, one built from the ground up and united by human values of justice and solidarity. More information about Sister Cities.