Climate Migration
A disappearing pond in central Mexico. Photo by Clayton Harrison via Shutterstock
Excessive heat threatens farmers and rural communities in Mexico. In the ag-rich state of Zacatecas, a series of droughts in recent years has pushed more people onto the migrant trail
Editor's note: Around the world, farmers and their communities have begun to adapt to the effects of climate change. In Mexico's Zacatecas state, farmers have been subject to increasingly severe droughts. Zacatecas has long sent migrants north to the United States, but climate change is pushing more people off their family farms. Today, there are as many Zacatecans living in the United States as in the state itself.
This story is one in a series on the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities.
Read here about how two severe hurricanes last year -- and the threat of more bad storms due to climate change -- ignited a wave of migration from Central America.
Read here about how vulnerable communities in Stockton, in California’s delta region, have organized to adapt to a changing environment.
Read here about how activists in Philadelphia are working with local leaders to combat excessive heat in tree-less, low-income neighborhoods.
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“The planting season has shifted. The rains no longer come when we expect them. In the past we were done sowing by the end of May, and were weeding in early June. Now we finish planting in July.”
Those sobering words come from bean producer Sergio Morales Mireles, in Sombrerete, in the north-central Mexican state of Zacatecas.
Sombrerete is a small municipality 400 miles north of Mexico City. In this town, the 65-year-old Morales is well-known, and not just for his wide moustache. He’s considered one of the hardest-working farmers around, seemingly always out in the same fields that his great-grandparents once plowed.
Today, Morales is outspoken among the thousands of small farmers who find themselves in a losing struggle against what he calls a monster -- a changing climate.
For those who work the small parcels of family farmland in Zacatecas, the effects of climate change can mean not having food to eat and not providing income for their families. They are ill-prepared to cope and adapt to the new reality. Their farm practices are outdated and they don’t have the technological tools to adapt to the increasing unpredictability of agriculture in a changing climate.
According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Mexico needs to promote strategies for mitigation and adaptation with a focus on the effects of climate change and on technology utilization, especially in the most vulnerable areas. This work needs to be done in collaboration with federal, municipal and local authorities, producers, and scientists. The government must also connect the climate issue to development policy, promoting better environmental regulations and land-use planning.
Underscoring the looming crisis: Mexico’s Undersecretary of Agriculture reports that drought in 2019 was “so severe” that the nation’s basic grain production was affected. Bean production suffered a loss of almost 25 percent of the crop in the spring-summer season. Zacatecas is one of the key bean-producing states that saw one of the driest Julys on record.
More drought, less planting
For Mexicans, in addition to corn, beans are a basic food staple. This legume represents an important source of protein for the population, especially those from the poorest regions of the country.
A drought-affected bean field near the town of Pánuco, Zacatecas. Photo by Clara Luz Padilla López/United Nations
Zacatecas is best known internationally as a silver-mining state. It is also Mexico’s leading producer of beans. Seventy percent of the seed production is grown on what are called “dry-land” farms -- parcels that rely on rain for irrigation.
But temperatures in Mexico have increased between 1.2 and 1.7 degrees Celsius since 2014. During the first half of June 2020, unusually dry conditions were recorded in more than 41 percent of Zacatecas, according to data from the Drought Monitor at Mexico’s National Meteorological System.
As the climate continues to change rapidly, droughts and heat waves will be more intense in the states of Zacatecas, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Chihuahua and Guanajuato.
“If conditions become extreme in Zacatecas, we will have to quit farming. People in our region would quickly head to the United States; they wouldn’t stay and starve.”
Professor Baudelio Rodríguez-González, of the Earth Sciences Academic Unit at Zacatecas National Autonomous University, explained that excessive heat will increasingly sterilize soils and accelerate cold waves as well as foster pest infestations. “The shortage of rain as a meteorological drought is opening a very large breach that in the long term can result in a desert in Zacatecas,” he added.
Morales’ experience is testimony to this trend:
“Last year wasn’t good for us. The severe drought that affected the country caused the collapse of bean crops. Many of us only produced for our own consumption.”
According to federal government surveys, over 300,000 hectares (over 740,000 acres) of beans and corn were not planted in Zacatecas' fields.
For the 2020 harvest Morales planted black beans on only four hectares.
“Unfortunately, the frost came early, and the harvest failed,” he said, adding that federal government support to bean producers, a program to safeguard the supply to millions of Mexicans, has not helped him.
Life on “the other side”
Rodolfo Martínez prepares a biofertilizer for bean farming. Photo courtesy: Gonzalo Martínez.
“To stop planting beans is very worrisome because beans and corn are what you live on. In this semi-arid region, there is not much work. Many people are going to the other side (the U.S.),” said Rodolfo Martínez, 60, a producer of pinto Saltillo beans and organic corn in the municipality of Chalchihuites, located 135 miles from the city of Zacatecas.
If urgent action is not taken to avoid an extreme situation that would end the social wellbeing of small producers and their families, Martínez said, climate change may displace thousands of Mexicans, sending many more north of the U.S. border.
Migration to the United States is not new for the people of Zacatecas. The state ranks third among Mexican states in international migration to the U.S., according to the National Population Council's 2020 Migration and Remittances Yearbook. The highest concentrations of Zacatecan immigrants are in the states of Texas, California, Illinois, Colorado and Oklahoma.
According to Martínez, excess heat not only threatens one of the basic seeds in Mexicans’ diet, but it’s also separating families. His own son Gonzalo, 27, plans to work in the United States in order to earn money he can then invest in the family’s ranch before it is further harmed by climate change.
Gonzalo (foreground) and his father, Rodolfo Martínez, prepare compost for their bean and corn fields.
“I graduated as an agricultural engineer five years ago, and since then I have struggled to find employment. I work with my dad; I plant and drive the tractor. We are okay for now, but there is nothing left for the rest of the year,” said Gonzalo, Martínez' youngest son and a father of two young children.
Gonzalo said he’s concerned about drought and what he suspects are its side effects, like the plague of worms six years ago that killed off all the organic beans and corn he and his father had planted. Gonzalo said it was drought that led to a pest infestation made worse by indiscriminate use of chemicals by other farmers in the region.
He said several producers struggled to make ends meet last year. “Now I’m even more determined to go to work in the United States.”
“Colorado and Texas are the best choices for me, I would work at their large farms,” Gonzalo said. “When I return, I will be able to replicate all the techniques I learn on those farms to minimize the impact of unusually intense heat and better combat pests in our organic crops … If conditions become extreme in Zacatecas, we will have to quit farming. People in our region would quickly head to the United States; they wouldn't stay and starve.”
Gonzalo Martínez removes the weeds that become entangled in the corn plant known as chayotillo.
One migrant from Zacatecas now working in the United States is Jorge Cervantes. He’s 20 years old and into his second year of harvesting apples in Washington state. Cervantes quit college after he obtained a temporary nonimmigrant (H-2A) visa for agricultural workers in the U.S. “Living and working in the United States is a great experience. I'm doing well financially. Every month I send $400 to my parents. I also have the opportunity to return to my land and help where it is becoming more difficult to plant corn.”
"Migrating - temporarily or permanently - to another state or country is the only option for many Mexicans seeking something better when the fields dry up," Cervantes said.
During his time in the U.S., he’s taken note of how differently the government assists farmers. In Mexico, he said, family farmers lack protections, subsidies or technology assistance, yet they have to worry about the effects of climate change just like farmers in more developed nations.
“American farmers have their crops insured during each production cycle against different risks caused by climate change, so they don't lose everything,” Cervantes said. “In Mexico there is no such support, the harvest is simply lost and you’re screwed … My goal is not to learn better farming techniques. I will continue as a farm worker to save enough money to create my own business buying and selling tractors and farm machinery."
Zacatecas National Autonomous University Professor Rodríguez-González said many drought victims who have abandoned their lands and migrated to the United States return later to work their family farms. “Unfortunately, they (move to) crops such as tomatoes and carrots, which are more profitable than beans or corn but drain resources such as (ground) water.”
Climate change will worsen the economy and then make matters worse on small farms, said Rodolfo García Zamora, researcher of public policy on migration and development at the Zacatecas Autonomous University. “If lack of water and droughts continue, there is a danger that in 30 years the migration in the central north of the country will be due not only to the economy but also to soil degradation and aquifer devastation. It will be extremely hard for people to continue living in these regions.”
Climate change adaptation
For people of few means, and who lack technological tools, migration is an adaptation strategy against climate change.
In the report Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Migration from Climate Impacts, the World Bank projects that if the impacts of climate change are not so severe, by 2020 there could be between 1.4 and 2.1 million “internal climate migrants” in Mexico and Central America, meaning dislocated people who move, for example, from the country to cities within their own nations. In a more pessimistic climate change scenario, this could reach 3.9 million, which would represent 1.9% of the region's population.
While focusing on internal migration on its report, the international body recognizes that “internal climate migrants do not necessarily stop at borders.” According to the report, climate change can inhibit or drive cross-border migration.
“As a small producer, one sows to the will of God without any guidance, and with only thoughts and prayers.”
In order to minimize effects of warming in Mexico's arid and semi-arid regions, in June 2020 the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development began modernizing farm infrastructure in some rural areas. In Zacatecas, two new water lines were installed to irrigate 280 hectares (691 acres) of crops and increase the capacity of a dam.
Almost as many natives of the state of Zacatecas, located in the geographic center of Mexico, now reside in the United States. Mexican Government map
However, bean producer Sergio Morales says authorities haven’t spoken to small farmers about how to combat climate change. “Authorities do not come to the communities or ejidos (communal farmlands) to inform, train or raise awareness about how to stop climate change. As a small producer, one sows to the will of God,” without any guidance, armed only with thoughts and prayers.
Morales said many Zacatecas farmers are more concerned about pulling enough from one farming season to feed their families and then plant in the next season. The government, Morales said, does not talk about gradual climate change or question why it is not raining today. “If consequences of climate change arise, they will take us by surprise, just like COVID-19 did, and we won't know how to get ahead or how to deal with them.”
Rodríguez said such short-term thinking, while an understandable way of coping, is risky. “It is important to educate people so that they can prepare and adapt in every way, starting with productive measures. They need to understand that climate change is a real danger.”
“We are building a time bomb that is going to end nature and even humanity,” Garcia added.
“We have to act now, or it will be too late. As farmers and citizens, we must raise awareness of the effects of climate change; we must take care of each other and of the environment,” Gonzalo Martínez said.
An urgent need for action
Rodolfo Martínez and his wife (Maria de los Angeles) apply compost known as bocash to the pinto saltillo bean fields, the most common in Zacatecas. Photo: Courtesy of Gonzalo Martínez
Erosion of fertile soil, air pollution, and deforestation are everyday issues in the Zacatecas countryside. Those problems are due to get worse.
“More than introducing climate-resistant seeds or grains, we need to look at climate change adaptation as a prevention mechanism (so we can) anticipate threats to people's livelihoods, natural resources, environmental services and productive and economic activities. This not only reduces vulnerability, but also motivates investment in infrastructure,” Rodríguez said.
“One alternative,” Gonzalo Martínez added, “would be to promote sustainable agriculture or introduce new and improved organic seed varieties. I’m not talking about transgenic seeds, because they require the use of pesticides that are harmful to the consumer and the environment.”
Another alternative is doing nothing, and that’s something Gonzalo’s father, Rodolfo Martínez, said he won’t tolerate.
“I like when I see green crops, running water, streams with beautiful water,” Martínez said. “As (iconic Mexican folk singer) Vicente Fernández said, I would like to turn back time, that it will not end because sometimes you feel like your wings are falling when it doesn't rain.”
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Julieta Pelcastre is a journalist in Mexico with over 23 years of experience covering politics, migration, corruption, drug trafficking, and national security. Her work has been published by Journalists for Transparency, 100Reporters, the Los Angeles Post-Examiner, Diálogo-Americas, Mundo Hispánico and Ahora Sí.