A Salvadoran farm worker collects indigo paste processed at the semi-industrial manufacture near San Miguel, El Salvador.
A Salvadoran farm worker collects indigo paste processed at the semi-industrial manufacture near San Miguel, El Salvador, 12 November 2016. For centuries, indigo, a natural deep blue dye extracted from the leaves of tropical plants (Indigofera), has been known to the native indigenous inhabitants of Central America who used the blue tincture to color their fabrics and pottery. Although demand for natural indigo dropped significantly at the end of 19th century when a synthetic indigo was firstly introduced, commercialization of natural indigo has risen again during the last decades. Small-scale indigo farms, processing the crop on sustainable and ecological basis, are growing throughout the country, returning El Salvador to the place of the main natural indigo producer in Latin America.
Size: 5316px × 3544px
Location: San Miguel, El Salvador
Photo credit: © Jan Sochor / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: agriculture, america, blue, central, cloth, collect, color, cotton, crop, dry, dye, ecological, economy, el, environment, evaporate, extraction, farm, filter, indigo, indigofera, manufacture, miguel, natural, paste, pigment, plant, production, rural, salvador, san, semi-industrial, sheet, sustainable, tradition, tropical, woman, work, worker
