Abstract
Since 2020 and 2021, Mexico suffers in 88% of its national territory drought conditions, the second most serious drought event of the twenty-first century in the national territory. One of the economic sectors most vulnerable to these disasters is agriculture, on which the production, access, and availability of all people to food depend. Under this tenor, the present work’s general objective is to analyze the preliminary productive, economic, social, and environmental effects caused by the current drought in the Mexican territory. The work is divided into three particular objectives: the first is to reflect on the idea that the effects of droughts are not only due to natural causes but also due to social, economic, and political factors associated with an uneven agricultural development process; the second objective is to show the impacts caused by droughts in Mexican agriculture, and the third is to analyze the institutional context of disaster risk management in the country. The methodology describes the main characteristics of loss, damage, and differentiated impact of hazards on exposed and vulnerable social elements addressed from the political economy perspective.
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01 August 2023
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Notes
- 1.
In 2019, global warming reached 1.1 °C above pre-industrial levels. Agriculture is feeling the effects. Rising greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations are causing profound changes in the climate that ultimately affect agricultural production. These include an increase in the number of days with extreme temperatures, more severe and frequent droughts, floods, and storms (FAO, 2021: 136).
- 2.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2012) defined climate change as a modification in the state of the climate that through the use of statistical tests can be identified by changes in the mean or variability of its properties and that persists during an extended period, typically decades or more. This change may be due to natural internal processes, external forces, or persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. For its part, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its article 1, refers to this phenomenon as a climate change attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the world atmosphere and that it adds to the natural climatic variability observed during comparable periods of time.
- 3.
It should be noted that the notion of Anthropocene precarious the notion that in global warming, we are all guilty, and therefore, we are all responsible; on the other hand, rather than talking about the Anthropocene, we live in the Capitalocene since the climate crisis of the twenty-first century was caused, to a large extent, by only 90 corporations, which have released into the atmosphere two thirds of the GHG generated since the beginning of the industrial era (Saxe-Fernández coord., 2018). This perspective takes up, in part, the pioneering postulates of classical Marxism, which indicates that it is essential to recognize that the relationships between nature and society must be approached dialectically, that is, society and nature mutually transform themselves in a historical process. Nature and history of human society are inextricably interwoven, and this mutually intersecting hinge is the axis of reflection and theorizing. Nature is, according to K. Marx, a moment of human praxis and at the same time the totality of what exists. In other words, there is no net separation between nature and society, since “nature, taken in abstract form, by itself, fixed in the separation of man, is nothing for man; on the contrary, nature is socially coined” (Schmidt, 1977).
- 4.
Global warming is a class phenomenon. It is a class phenomenon within countries and between them. According to the Oxfam report entitled “Combating carbon emissions inequality”, from September 2020, the richest 10% of the world’s population (approximately 630 million people) generated 52% of accumulated carbon emissions, consuming almost a third (31%) of the global carbon budget in just those 25 years; meanwhile, the poorest 50% of the world's population (approximately 3.1 billion people) generated only 7% of accumulated emissions, consuming only 4% of the available carbon budget (Oxfam, 2020).
- 5.
Types of droughts according to Conagua (2021a): Abnormally Dry (D0): It is a dry condition, it is not a drought category. It occurs at the beginning or end of a dry spell. At the beginning of a drought period: due to the short-term dryness, it can cause the delay in the sowing of annual crops, a limited growth of crops or pastures and there is the risk of fires. At the end of the dry period: water deficits may persist, pastures or crops may not fully recover. Moderate Drought (D1): There is some damage to crops and pastures; there is a high risk of fires, low levels in rivers, streams, reservoirs, troughs and wells, voluntary restriction on the use of water is suggested. Severe Drought (D2): Probable losses in crops or pastures, high risk of fires, water shortage are common, restrictions should be imposed on the use of water. Extreme Drought (D3): Major losses in crops and pastures, the risk of forest fires is extreme, restrictions on the use of water are generalized due to its scarcity. Exceptional Drought (D4): Exceptional and widespread losses of crops or pastures, exceptional risk of fires, total shortage of water in reservoirs, streams and wells, an emergency situation is likely due to the absence of water.
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Hernández-Pérez, J.L., Jerez-Ramírez, D.O. (2023). The Impacts of Drought Disasters on Mexican Agriculture: An Interpretation from the Perspective of the Political Economy of Disasters. In: Alam, A., Rukhsana (eds) Climate Change, Agriculture and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28251-5_4
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