A community group in the dry south of Honduras is diversifying crops to adapt to the climate crisis. Members of the cooperative tend their cashew trees in southern Honduras. Cashew trees don’t need much water and improve the soil condition, as well as providing an income for people in Choluteca, Honduras.
El Triunfo lies within the dry corridor – an area of Central America that covers parts of Honduras as well as El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Costa Rica. “The dry corridor has big problems in terms of being vulnerable to climate change,” says Danilo Manzanares, coordinator of Mesa Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional, a steering group seeking solutions to drought in the south of Honduras. “Everything floods, or it’s the opposite; it doesn’t rain. It’s terrible, and getting worse.”
In response, more people in the region are pivoting to cashew trees and harvesting the seeds, explains Manzanares. It is an approach that the World Food Programme (WFP) is advocating for those experiencing high levels of food insecurity in the region, says Gustavo Tábora, field monitor of the WFP in Choluteca. “It’s better to have a mixture of crops because people need diversity. Corn, over time, depletes the soil [of its nutrients]. You have to look for and give alternatives so that people can provide for, and feed, themselves.”
Source: theguardian.com