Over one-third of Salvadoran homes live in poverty

I can't remember hearing too much about individual strong storms striking Central America this year but that obviously doesn't mean that the region hasn't been severely affected by climactic factors. However, changing conditions have brought drought conditions in the rainy seasons and flooding in the dry season. Central America remains one of the world's most vulnerable regions when it comes to suffering the affects of climate change.

In addition to insecurity, climate change and coffee rust are making life more challenging than ever for the people of El Salvador, especially those who make their living off the land.

Coffee production generates some 150,000 direct jobs and 500,000 indirect jobs, according to the report “Coffee Cultivation in El Salvador 2013”, drawn up by the governmental Salvadoran Coffee Council (CSC). Between 1995 and 2012, coffee represented 7.5 percent of the country’s total exports.

The fungus threatens to further impoverish El Salvador’s rural areas, where 36 percent of households already live in poverty, according to the government’s Multiple-Purpose Households Survey 2013.

Membreño told IPS that before the coffee leaf rust outbreak ravaged the farm, she picked two quintals (92 kilos) a day, earning around eight dollars a day during the three-month harvest.

“But now I don’t even manage to pick one quintal, and I earn just three dollars a day,” she said with resignation.

According to the most recent Encuesta de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples (EHPM), while multidimensional poverty improved from 40% to 31% between 2008 and 2014 it has since worsened and now stands at 35.2%.