Mexico's Rural Women Farmers Fight Drought in a Struggling Market Ofelia Harms - DW.DE
go to original March 8, 2013

Apolonia Alvarez' corn crop has been heavily impacted by the ongoing drought. (Ofelia Harms)

An increasing number of women farmers in Mexico are battling drought, gun-carrying gangs and a struggling domestic agricultural market. Despite recent efforts to support family farms, they are facing an uphill battle.

Apolonia Alvarez walks with a powerful stride towards her corn field, near the town of Izucar de Matamoros, in the southern central Mexican state of Puebla.

The 54-year-old farmer rents just a little more than 60 square meters of a corn plot in this poor area. Right now, it's in a sorry state. The earth is dusty and bare and most of the stalks lie dying in the hot midday sun.

"My corn almost didn't grow at all this last summer," she says. "The rain stopped when the crops were still very, very small."

The mother of four tries to support her family with the corn she grows here, but, this past year she has only been able to harvest a few sacks of corn. When the crop fails, Alvarez supplements her income by doing small jobs for other people instead.

"I'm by myself. When I can I sometimes help to wash or iron other people's clothes, but I only earn about 50 pesos," she tells DW. Fifty pesos is equal to about three euros ($4).

Read the whole story at DW.DE

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