A small investment for a great harvest

On May 31, 2020, Reina Isabel and her family were startled awake in the middle of the night by Tropical Storm Amanda.

“I was very concerned since the rain did not stop falling and we heard thunder in the distance,” she says. “The water began to get into the house.”

Isabel is a 42-year-old farmer who lives with her husband and her two children in Tamanique, El Salvador, an agricultural community in the mountains. The main source of income for many in Tamanique is the cultivation of corn, beans and sorghum.

At the first sign of morning light, her husband went to check on their crops, only to discover four acres were completely destroyed by a mudslide, Isabel says.

In El Salvador, Tropical Storm Amanda took the lives of 30 people, damaged over 20,000 homes and an estimated 22,000 farmers lost some or all of their crops.

But thanks to Plan International -- a member of the Humanitarian Coalition -- farmers like Isabel received cash transfers for the purchase of agricultural supplies.

The money came to Isabel just in time to purchase seasonal essentials: fertilizers, herbicides and the harvesting tools she needed.

“This is the time when the harvest requires maintenance, and we are very grateful to Plan International for the help they gave us," she says.

Isabel is confident the support will help her family meet their most basic food, health and housing needs, along with the money they will make from their crops.

“Now with Plan International's support, we see a light at the end of the tunnel,” she says.

“We know that this will help us to have a good harvest.”