How climate change is affecting rural Honduras and pushing people north
clock Stephanie Leutert is the director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. In August, rows of corn plants dotted the rural landscape in the Honduran department of Lempira. From afar, nothing looked amiss in these small farms. Yet it hadnt rained for the previous 40 days, and the corn cobs tucked inside the husks were small and kernel-less. Across Honduras, an unpredictable climate has made this situation increasingly common. Droughts have wrecked crops, and changing weather patterns have created additional challenges for millions of Honduran farmers. To survive amid the bad harvests, rural families are looking elsewhere to supplement their incomes: to different sectors, nearby cities and north to the United States. A caravan with thousands of migrants has been making its way through Mexico after setting out three weeks ago from Honduras, which holds the distinction of being one of the worlds most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change. Over the past four decades, the countrys average temperature has risen , and it has borne the brunt of ever more frequent severe weather events. These climatic changes are on a collision path with the countrys weather-dependent workforce and economy. Today, 1 in 4 Hondurans continues to work directly in agriculture, and bananas and coffee continue to be two of the top economic drivers. Droughts are among the countrys most common risks. Central and western Honduras including the department of Lempira form part of Central Americas dry corridor. It stretches from Nicaragua through Guatemala and is prone to reoccurring droughts that leave parched crops, bone-thin cattle and hungry families in their wake. In 2016, the United Nations World Food Program estimated that a recent drought left 1.3 million Hondurans in need of humanitarian assistance . This hunger translates directly into migration, with the Food and Agriculture Organization reporting that from 2014 to 2016, people migrating out of the dry corridors drought-stricken areas most frequently cited no food as the driving factor. Yet while droughts may be destructive, it can also be devastating when the rain finally arrives. Torrential downpours and flash floods are common across Honduras, washing away fields of crops, bridges and houses. Hurricanes also batter the country. The most infamous example was Hurricane Mitch in 1998 , which left 15,000 Hondurans dead in the aftermath and 1 million homeless. While this disaster spurred some Honduran migration to the United States, far more residents rebuilt their homes and remained vulnerable to future flooding and landslides. The effects of a changing climate go well beyond droughts and floods to include the dreaded coffee leaf rust. Hondurass coffee sector is one of the largest rural employers, with more than 96,000 small coffee producers and a million workers . A warming climate has allowed the coffee rust to spread to plants in higher elevations, and farmers have to invest in medicines to keep their plants healthy. However, these extra costs contribute to making Honduran coffee more expensive to grow than farmers can sell it for on the global market. And in response, the sector has seen layoffs, bottomed-out wages and an exodus of rural workers. Three weeks ago, I spoke with Alex Orlando Lora, 20, and Audiel Guillermo Mejia, 25 both from the western region of Honduras in a migrant shelter in southern Mexico. Both men had left behind subsistence agriculture and coffee farm jobs, since they no longer could afford to eat three meals a day. According to U.S. Border Patrol data provided through a Freedom of Information Act Request, their case is increasingly common. In the past year alone, the number of migrant families coming from Hondurass heavily agricultural and coffee-producing western area has doubled. The region now constitutes the sending region for around 20 percent of Honduran migrant families. However, it can be tricky to tease out climate changes exact role in migration. Climate factors often get wrapped up in broad explanations such as poverty, low economic development or low wages, and it can be hard to tell if changing weather patterns are the driving factor for a migration decision or simply one factor of many. Further complicating this chain of causation is that many Hondurans do not simply grab their backpacks and hit the migrant trail when facing unpredictable weather but rather relocate to cities in search of work. This makes it difficult at times to understand not just what finally pushed Hondurans out of their country but also what initially forced them to leave home. Today, a changing climate is transforming rural Honduras, and the effects are just beginning. Over the next decade, climate models predict that Hondurass temperatures will continue to rise, water will become scarcer in certain regions and weather patterns will become even more unpredictable . Without monumental shifts in small farmers resiliency to extreme weather, todays patterns of disaster, ruined crops and hunger are bound to continue. In the face of these challenges, Honduran farmers and ranchers will continue to do as they have done in the past, moving both within their own country and also migrating even farther to the United States. Ready more: Enrique Acevedo: Expect more migrant caravans while Trump insists on the same failed policies Megan McCardel: The immigration conversation we need to have and soon The Posts View: Trumps response to the migrant caravan will only make things worse Jennifer Rubin: Trump plays the xenophobia card, again Erik Wemple: What, are you going to shoot them, Sean?: Hannity issues dire warnings on migrant caravan