From teleSURtv

The region’s agricultural ministers met in El Salvador and declared an agricultural alert to deal with the crisis.
Over 1.6 million Central American and Caribbean campesinos and their families have been seriously affected by a severe drought caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon, prompting officials of the region’s countries to declare an agricultural alert Thursday.

In Guatemala alone, according to a recent report, some 1 million people are suffering hunger due to the drought and the crops is has destroyed. In Honduras, 10 municipalities are now officially experiencing famine. Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico, hundreds of thousands of households in capital San Juan and along the country’s north coast are being limited to two days a week of water use.

The Central American and Caribbean ministers of agriculture met in El Salvador’s capital San Salvador to discuss the ill-effects of El Niño, which international experts say is building up to be stronger than many previous years.

The officials explained that declaring the agricultural alert implies that aid and assistance will be given to the families affected, as well as coordination between the region’s countries to receive international cooperation.

They added that it also includes technical assistance to farming families so they can deal with the damages caused by the drought to their crops and cattle.

The ministers said their governments are mulling the application of policies aimed at adapting to climate change, protecting coffee plantations facing the roya fungus plague affecting them and the implementation of a family agricultural plan in the next six months.

Salvadoran agriculture minister, Orestes Ortez, told journalists the alert seeks to “call the attention to the problem in order to further deepen policies of mitigation and prevention of future events and to ask for the cooperation from the international community.”

Earlier in August, the World Food Programme Regional Director Miguel Barreto, and Ignacio Rivera, Coordinator of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, made the joint statement, “It is essential that the countries and the international community prioritize resources to face the negative impacts caused by the insufficient and irregular rains in the countries of Central America, with both short and long-term measures.”

Central America and the Caribbean are particularly affected each year by climate change and El Niño due to their geographic location, which generates multimillion-dollar losses. The lack of rains has left millions of Central American campesinos without their subsistence crops, such as corn, beans and rice.

For more on this story and video go to: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/1.6mn-Central-American-Caribbean-Campesinos-Hit-by-Drought-20150821-0005.html