Tierra Verde Farmers Fear Data Center Plans Threaten Water Supply

On a humid morning in early October, Rosa Martínez stands at the edge of her family's ten-hectare coffee farm in the foothills above San Vicente, pointing to the spring that has fed her irrigation channels for thirty years. The water runs clear and steady, but Rosa has begun to worry. Last month, a notice arrived from the Federal Office for Infrastructure Development in Meridian: the government was considering a proposal to clear 8,000 hectares of forest in the eastern highlands—land adjacent to Rosa's farm—to make room for two large data centres.

The proposal, which would require federal approval and environmental review, has triggered alarm among Tierra Verde's smallholder farmers, who depend on the highlands' forest cover to regulate water flow and maintain the aquifers that feed the region's irrigation infrastructure. For Rosa and hundreds of other farmers, the highlands are not a distant concern; they are the source of the water that makes agriculture possible in the valleys below.

The tension reflects a broader clash between Meridian's vision of Tierra Verde as a hub for digital infrastructure and the region's agricultural leadership, which sees the highlands as essential to the long-term viability of coffee, yerba mate, and organic crop production. The federal government has not yet formally proposed the project, but the preliminary notice has already mobilized farmers' associations and cooperative councils across the region.