Central American Farmers Head to the U.S., Fleeing Climate Change

CORQUÍN, Honduras — The farmer stood in his patch of forlorn coffee plants, their leaves sick and wilted, the next harvest in doubt.

Drying coffee at a cooperative in the Copán area of western Honduras.

Last year, two of his brothers and a sister, desperate to find a better way to survive, abandoned their small coffee farms in this mountainous part of Honduras and migrated north, eventually sneaking into the United States.

Then in February, the farmer’s 16-year-old son also headed north, ignoring the family’s pleas to stay.

The challenges of agricultural life in Honduras have always been mighty, from poverty and a neglectful government to the swings of international commodity prices.

Read there story from The New York Times by Kirk Semple - “Central American Farmers Head to the U.S., Fleeing Climate Change.”