IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v156y2022ics0305750x22001085.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of coffee leaf rust on migration by smallholder coffee farmers in Guatemala

Author

Listed:
  • Dupre, Samuel I.
  • Harvey, Celia A.
  • Holland, Margaret B.

Abstract

Climate change is driving severe outbreaks of crop diseases, decimating agricultural production, and disrupting rural livelihoods globally. While the patterns of agricultural disease outbreaks are well documented, less is known about the extent to which climate change-driven diseases are affecting crop production, disrupting farmer livelihoods, and potentially altering farmer migration patterns. In this study, we investigated the impacts of an extended outbreak (2007–2016) of coffee leaf rust (CLR, Hemileia vastatrix) on the livelihoods and migration decisions of smallholder coffee farmers in ten communities in eastern Guatemala, comparing coffee farming households from communities that had a history of migration with those that did not. We used a mixed-methods approach to assess the impacts of CLR on coffee production and farmer livelihoods, documented the migration decisions of household members, and compared migration rates and destinations between migrant communities and previously non-migrant communities. We also assessed the effects of crop loss, household wealth, and information access on the use of migration as a coping strategy among affected households. We found that smallholder farmer households lost an average of 71% (SE = 2%) of their coffee production during their self-defined worst year of CLR impact. Household migration almost doubled in response to CLR, both in communities that had a history of migration and in historically non-migrant communities. Migration was more likely among households that experienced greater crop losses of due to CLR. In contrast, migration was lower among households that had greater access to information. Our study demonstrates the potential for climate-driven disease outbreaks to significantly impact farmers’ livelihoods and increase farmer migration from rural regions, and highlights the need for urgent action to support farmers to adapt to these changing conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Dupre, Samuel I. & Harvey, Celia A. & Holland, Margaret B., 2022. "The impact of coffee leaf rust on migration by smallholder coffee farmers in Guatemala," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:156:y:2022:i:c:s0305750x22001085
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.105918
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22001085
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.105918?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arild Angelsen & Mariel Aguilar-Støen & John Herbert Ainembabazi & Edwin Castellanos & Matthew Taylor, 2020. "Migration, Remittances, and Forest Cover Change in Rural Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-23, March.
    2. Margaret Buck Holland & Sierra Zaid Shamer & Pablo Imbach & Juan Carlos Zamora & Claudia Medellin Moreno & Efraín J. Leguía Hidalgo & Camila I. Donatti & M. Ruth Martínez-Rodríguez & Celia A. Harvey, 2017. "Mapping adaptive capacity and smallholder agriculture: applying expert knowledge at the landscape scale," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 139-153, March.
    3. Lindsey Carte & Birgit Schmook & Claudia Radel & Richard Johnson, 2019. "The Slow Displacement of Smallholder Farming Families: Land, Hunger, and Labor Migration in Nicaragua and Guatemala," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(6), pages 1-12, June.
    4. Sedova, Barbora & Kalkuhl, Matthias, 2020. "Who are the climate migrants and where do they go? Evidence from rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Celia Ruiz-de-Oña & Patricia Rivera-Castañeda & Yair Merlín-Uribe, 2019. "Coffee, Migration and Climatic Changes: Challenging Adaptation Dichotomic Narratives in a Transborder Region," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-26, November.
    6. Héctor Morales-Muñoz & Srijna Jha & Michelle Bonatti & Henryk Alff & Sabine Kurtenbach & Stefan Sieber, 2020. "Exploring Connections—Environmental Change, Food Security and Violence as Drivers of Migration—A Critical Review of Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-27, July.
    7. Paul Glewwe & Margaret Grosh, 2000. "Designing Household Survey Questionnaires for Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 25338.
    8. Lori M. Hunter & Sheena Murray & Fernando Riosmena, 2013. "Rainfall Patterns and U.S. Migration from Rural Mexico," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 874-909, December.
    9. Serena Tagliacozzo & Michele Magni, 2016. "Communicating with communities (CwC) during post-disaster reconstruction: an initial analysis," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 84(3), pages 2225-2242, December.
    10. Bacon, Christopher M. & Sundstrom, William A. & Stewart, Iris T. & Beezer, David, 2017. "Vulnerability to Cumulative Hazards: Coping with the Coffee Leaf Rust Outbreak, Drought, and Food Insecurity in Nicaragua," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 136-152.
    11. World Bank, 2015. "Women in Agriculture," World Bank Publications - Reports 22386, The World Bank Group.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hagen-Zanker, Jessica & Carling, Jørgen & Caso, Nicolás & Rubio, Marcela G., 2025. "The multi-level determinants of international migration aspirations in 25 communities in Africa, Asia and the Middle East," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    2. Jona Huber & Ignacio Madurga-Lopez & Una Murray & Peter C. McKeown & Grazia Pacillo & Peter Laderach & Charles Spillane, 2023. "Climate-related migration and the climate-security-migration nexus in the Central American Dry Corridor," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(6), pages 1-22, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barbora Šedová & Lucia Čizmaziová & Athene Cook, 2021. "A meta-analysis of climate migration literature," CEPA Discussion Papers 29, Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
    2. Yen Pham & Kathryn Reardon-Smith & Shahbaz Mushtaq & Geoff Cockfield, 2019. "The impact of climate change and variability on coffee production: a systematic review," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 609-630, October.
    3. Jona Huber & Ignacio Madurga-Lopez & Una Murray & Peter C. McKeown & Grazia Pacillo & Peter Laderach & Charles Spillane, 2023. "Climate-related migration and the climate-security-migration nexus in the Central American Dry Corridor," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(6), pages 1-22, June.
    4. John A. Maluccio, 2009. "Household targeting in practice: The Nicaraguan Red de Protección Social," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 1-23.
    5. Gunther Bensch & Jörg Peters, 2013. "Alleviating Deforestation Pressures? Impacts of Improved Stove Dissemination on Charcoal Consumption in Urban Senegal," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 89(4), pages 676-698.
    6. Barik, Debasis & Desai, Sonalde & Vanneman, Reeve, 2018. "Economic Status and Adult Mortality in India: Is the Relationship Sensitive to Choice of Indicators?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 176-187.
    7. Mohammad Abu-Zaineh & Habiba Romdhane & Bruno Ventelou & Jean-Paul Moatti & Arfa Chokri, 2013. "Appraising financial protection in health: the case of Tunisia," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 73-93, March.
    8. Théo Benonnier & Katrin Millock & Vis Taraz, 2022. "Long-term migration trends and rising temperatures: the role of irrigation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(3), pages 307-330, July.
    9. Sem J. Duijndam & W. J. Wouter Botzen & Liselotte C. Hagedoorn & Philip Bubeck & Toon Haer & My Pham & Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts, 2023. "Drivers of migration intentions in coastal Vietnam under increased flood risk from sea level rise," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(2), pages 1-22, February.
    10. Van Landeghem, Bert & Vandeplas, Anneleen, 2018. "The relationship between status and happiness: Evidence from the caste system in rural India," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 62-71.
    11. Fujii, Tomoki & Shonchoy, Abu S. & Xu, Sijia, 2018. "Impact of Electrification on Children’s Nutritional Status in Rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 315-330.
    12. Ramy Mohamed Ghazy & Malik Sallam & Rasha Ashmawy & Amira Mohamed Elzorkany & Omar Ahmed Reyad & Noha Alaa Hamdy & Heba Khedr & Rasha Ali Mosallam, 2023. "Catastrophic Costs among Tuberculosis-Affected Households in Egypt: Magnitude, Cost Drivers, and Coping Strategies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-14, February.
    13. Leandro De Magalhães & Dongya Koh & Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis, 2016. "Consumption and Expenditure in Sub-Saharan Africa," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 16/677, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK, revised 07 Oct 2016.
    14. Mukherjee, Manisha, 2022. "Climate change and migration: Reviewing the role of access to agricultural adaptation measures," MERIT Working Papers 2022-039, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    15. Reena Badiani, 2007. "Changes in Living Standards in Villages in India 1975-2004: Revisiting the ICRISAT Village Level Studies," Working Papers id:1172, eSocialSciences.
    16. Sawada Yasuyuki & Shoji Masahiro & Sugawara Shinya & Shinkai Naoko, 2014. "The Role of Infrastructure in Mitigating Poverty Dynamics: The Case of an Irrigation Project in Sri Lanka," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 14(3), pages 1117-1144, July.
    17. Attahiru, Yusuf Babangida & Aziz, Md. Maniruzzaman A. & Kassim, Khairul Anuar & Shahid, Shamsuddin & Wan Abu Bakar, Wan Azelee & NSashruddin, Thanwa Filza & Rahman, Farahiyah Abdul & Ahamed, Mohd Imra, 2019. "A review on green economy and development of green roads and highways using carbon neutral materials," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 600-613.
    18. Haddad, Lawrence J. & Alderman, Harold & Appleton, Simon & Song, Lina & Yohannes, Yisehac, 2002. "Reducing child undernutrition: how far does income growth take us?," FCND discussion papers 137, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    19. Ye, Yuxiang & Koch, Steven F., 2021. "Measuring energy poverty in South Africa based on household required energy consumption," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    20. Xiaowei Yang & Jianmin Gao & Zhongliang Zhou & Jue Yan & Sha Lai & Yongjian Xu & Gang Chen, 2016. "Assessing the Effects of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme on Alleviating the Health Payment-Induced Poverty in Shaanxi Province, China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-12, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:156:y:2022:i:c:s0305750x22001085. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.