MONTERÍA, Colombia — “Look at the rooms in our house,” says Remberto Gil, 45, during a sweltering day last September. “During this time of the year, they are typically overflowing with freshly harvested corn to the point where we only have space to sleep in hammocks hanging over the cobs.” An Indigenous Zenù farmer, Gil lives in the Zenù reserve of San Andrés de Sotavento, a nearly 10,000-hectare (25,000-acre) piece of land that’s home to 33,000 people in northwestern Colombia. “Now, everything is empty,” he adds. “We lost around 90% of the first harvest due to drought, and the little corn we have now is smaller than usual. We had no rain during the last month, and now we can’t sow.” In the Zenù reserve, issues with the weather, climate or soil are spread by word of mouth between farmers, or on La Positiva 103.0, a community agroecology radio station. And what’s been on every farmer’s mind is last year’s record-breaking heat and droughts. Both of these were charged by the twin impacts of climate change and a newly developing El Niño, a naturally occurring warmer period that last occurred here in 2016, say climate scientists. Experts from Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies say the impacts of El Niño will be felt in Colombia until April 2024, adding to farmers’ concerns. Other scientists forecast June to August may be even hotter than 2023, and the next five years could be the hottest on record. On Jan. 24,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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