Central American farmers stay one step ahead of profit-hungry 'coyotes'
Agriculture was hit hard during El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s. After a peace deal was signed in 1992, service industries and manufacturing took priority over agricultural development. More than 90% of fruit and vegetables consumed in the country are imported, according to government figures.
"The agricultural structure was abandoned," says Oscar Ortiz, mayor of Santa Tecla, a town near the capital, San Salvador, but which is predominantly rural. "The countryside was left practically empty. Many of the young people emigrated to the cities."
Not José Aníbal Mejía, who grows squash, chillies, cucumber, green peppers and green beans in the village of Boca Poza, an hour and a half's drive from Santa Tecla. He took over a farm his father had been granted as part of attempted land reform in the 1980s, and spent years scratching out a living selling his produce at whatever price buyers would offer.
"We had no choice, it was the coyotes who set the price," says Mejía, as he tours his vegetable plot in the fertile lowlands just a few hundred metres from the Pacific Ocean. Here, as in most of central America, "coyote" is a term usually associated with people who facilitate the passage of undocumented migrants from one country to another on their way to the US. But coyote is also used to denote a middleman, particularly one who takes advantage of unwitting farmers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/jun/25/central-american-farmers-coyotes