Assessment of Agricultural Resilience Under Climate Change and Its Relation to Food Insecurity and Migration in the Northern Triangle of Central America

Excerpts from the Executive Summary: The Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) is composed of three countries, namely El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Besides having common geographic features, the countries are characterized by increasing migration, and exposure and vulnerability to climate change. Agriculture is a significant sector that employs large numbers of rural population across the three countries. Concurrently, it is also heavily impacted by climate variability and climate change, which compounds the existing vulnerabilities of people employed in agriculture. The report is based on analyzing four main agricultural systems which are key for more than 80 percent of agricultural households in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras: coffee, staple grains, livestock, and vegetables. The objective of this report is to systematize primary data and existing knowledge about climate change impacts and vulnerability of the agricultural sector in the NTCA countries, specifically of coffee, staple grains, livestock and vegetables farmers, with an additional aim of having spatial detail on livelihoods and beneficiaries of interventions for building resilience and contributing to the U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America. To our best knowledge, this report is the only one to use systems and livelihoods approach for an analysis of agricultural vulnerability, resilience, food security and migration, and to additionally provide a comprehensive inquiry that includes spatial specificity. The report links the results of the analysis with the existing, on-the-ground practices and it offers concrete proposals for actions in the NTCA. Based on the field data, USDA and CATIE scientists’ inputs, and complemented with reviews of relevant literature, this report highlights some of the key issues related to agricultural livelihoods, their resilience to the effects of climate change, and interlinkages of agricultural resilience, food security and migration, and it provides concrete suggestions for strategic interventions for increasing agricultural resilience in the NTCA.