In Central America’s Dry Corridor, Farmers Find Ways to Harvest Water and Food – VIDEO
Cristian Castillo benefits from a rainwater harvesting system installed on his nearly one-hectare plot in Paraje Galán, a rural village of 400 families in the western Salvadoran district of Candelaria de la Frontera. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
By Edgardo Ayala
CANDELARIA DE LA FRONTERA, El Salvador, Apr 7 2025 (IPS)
In Central America’s Dry Corridor, climatic conditions hinder water and food production because rainfall in this ecoregion—from May to December—is less predictable than in the rest of the isthmus.
Cristian Castillo knows this firsthand. The young Salvadoran farmer had just planted tomatoes on his small plot of land, less than a hectare in size, when the hand-dug well he planned to use for irrigation ran dry.
“I had a well, but due to (earth) tremors, the (aquifer’s) veins closed up, and the water stopped flowing,” Castillo told IPS, standing beside his home and field in the rural village of Paraje Galán, a community of 400 families in the Candelaria de la Frontera district, western El Salvador.
But with or without tremors—common in this country of six million people—it’s not unusual for wells to dry up in the Dry Corridor due to prolonged droughts during the rainy season. Without water, there’s no way to grow crops or raise cattle and pigs, which are vital for the survival of local communities.
Stretching 1,600 kilometers, the Dry Corridor covers 35% of Central America and is home to more than 10.5 million people.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), over 73% of the rural population in this belt lives in poverty, and 7.1 million people suffer from severe food insecurity.
Central America, a region of seven countries with a combined population of 50 million, faces deep social inequalities.
Aware of the harsh climatic conditions in the Dry Corridor, around 25 municipalities in the neighboring countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador formed the Trinational Border Association of the Lempa River in 2007. This regional, non-governmental initiative promotes sustainable development projects in their territories.
Castillo is among those who benefited from the construction of one such tank, with a storage capacity of 10 cubic meters, equivalent to 50 large drums.
“I’ll pump all the collected rainwater to the upper part of the property where the tomato crop is,” explained Castillo, 36.
In the neighboring village of Cristalina, still within the jurisdiction of Candelaria de la Frontera, the Trinational Association was one of the organizations that helped install a potable water distribution tank that now serves about a hundred families who previously lacked this service.
“We had hand-dug wells here, but they weren’t enough anymore. When the (water) project came, we were overjoyed because we would finally have water available all the time,” Cristalina resident Gladis Chamuca, 57, told IPS.