Adaptive capacity of small-scale coffee farmers to climate change impacts in the Soconusco region of Chiapas, Mexico

This paper identifies conditions of social vulnerability and climate-related disaster risk in the Huehuetan River basin, Chiapas, Mexico and analyses the capacity of small coffee producers to adapt to hydrometeorological hazards. Small-scale farmers in the basin use various strategies to adapt to the impacts of such hazards and to confront the deterioration of their livelihoods, including diversifying the varieties of coffee they cultivate, diversifying their sources of income, and emigration. Analysis of these strategies suggests that high levels of poverty, coffee monoculture, food insecurity, and instability in sources of employment and income combine to limit the flexibility and stability of population's adaptive capacity. The strategies employed by local people have allowed for short-term subsistence but offer little chance of long-term sustainability. Conditions do not appear to reduce social vulnerability and, in fact, undermine local resilience that would reduce damage and risks from extreme climate events. The impacts of climate change are placing the region's small farmers in a very vulnerable situation from which it may be difficult to escape, without the implementation of social reform predicated on greater justice and social equality, which will require political will. This case illustrates the challenges that must be addressed in order to overcome the social inequalities that prevent small-farmer communities from reducing their vulnerability in the face of climate-(or non-climate-) related risks.