Colombian Farmers’ Environmental Crisis
By Erika Pietrzak, July 31 , 2025
Colombian farmers, Afro-Colombians, and Indigenous communities bear the brunt of environmental impacts in Colombia. Deforestation, rising water levels, and extreme weather events have destroyed many of the long-standing agricultural practices, threatening the future of Colombia’s agriculture.
Source: The Guardian
Extreme weather, illegal gold mining, deforestation, contamination, and armed conflict created a recipe for crisis in Colombia, which has led to the depletion of fish stocks, destruction of land and crops, and skyrocketing prices that have widely destabilized agricultural work in the country. As with many issues, Afro-Colombians and Indigenous communities experience the worst of the climate crisis’s impacts.
Today, almost 40,000 rural Colombians in the Riosucio municipality are experiencing worsening food insecurity as recurring floods, river sedimentation, and mercury contamination place agricultural success in jeopardy. Crops have been eradicated and fish stocks are significantly depleted and contaminated. Cassava and plantain farmers are forced to rely on costly imported staples that are increasingly difficult to find and grow in the region, eroding traditional livelihoods and Indigenous farming methods. In particular, cocoa plants have largely disappeared from the region due to extreme weather conditions.
Illegal and legal mining poison rivers with mercury, resulting in shrinking fish populations and expanding health risks. Mercury levels in the river affect fish reproduction, depleting stocks, while the remaining fish are contaminated. For the first time, Colombian fishers are reporting trips without any catches. This has resulted in severe health impacts for people who rely on these fish for sustenance. In the Atrato River basin, 90 percent of residents had unsafe mercury levels, including levels up to forty times the safe limit.
Despite an overall 0.6 percent decrease in food insecurity in Colombia from 2023 to 2024.However, the rural regions of Colombia experienced increased food insecurity, partially due to the depletion of fish and crop stocks that have spiked prices significantly.
Between 2000 and 2020, almost five million hectares of natural forest were converted into grassland. Despite successful peace agreements in 2016 between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to largely end the group’s rapid deforestation in Colombia, other insurgent groups and criminal gangs have increased logging and mining that accelerate climate issues. FARC would restrict deforestation to use the tree canopy for cover, but current armed groups prioritize illegal mining, cattle ranching, and logging. In the absence of stringent regulation and legal ramifications, criminal groups are exploiting limited resources for their immediate financial gain. A 35 percent rise in deforestation occurred between 2023 and 2024, with 413 square miles lost last year. By controlling economics in these rural areas, armed groups hinder state authority, worsen cycles of poverty, and prevent Colombia from meeting its climate (and peace) goals.
Source: The Guardian
The Salaquí basin suffers from rising water levels that threaten the homes of the residents. The homes on the river are connected by wooden boards and the fluctuations in water levels have been managed by the residents for decades with this method. “Salaquí is the main food pantry of Riosucio,” accounts a subsistence farmer and community leader in Riosucio. Salaquí is largely made up of Afro-Colombians, making up 46 thousand of the area’s 53 thousand residents. The increasing water levels have pushed back the Salaquí community and destroyed precious land mass and homes. This was only made worse by severe flooding in 2024, which increased food insecurity and destabilized incomes as farmers were forced to go longer distances from their homes to collect food. The flooding comes at the same time as varying weather conditions that have made the timing of planting crops unpredictable. Today, 71 percent of the basin “suffers from multidimensional poverty” and a rapid exodus from rural Colombia makes the future of the region more unknown.
The Colombian government has made some attempts to address the issues this environmental crisis has caused for agricultural workers. Last November, a state of emergency was declared due to extreme weather conditions. Programs like “zero hunger”, introduced in 2024, have done little to address the root causes of food loss with many critics saying that the program is misguided. Most aid efforts have failed to tackle flooding, transport breakdowns, and land degradation in the Chocó region (where Riosucio is located), resulting in continued food insecurity and agricultural depletion. The Chocó region also experienced the largest increase in food insecurity rising from 18.9 percent in 2023 to 36.3 percent in 2024.
Aid efforts have largely been muted by armed groups like the Gaitanist Self-Defence Forces of Colombia that control movement, displace communities, and claim territories that are already struggling. The isolation of these rural communities make aid delivery difficult, only worsened by their roadblocks.
Colombia and its rural municipalities are a prime example of how overlapping crises and climate issues “can obliterate food systems.” Colombian farmers, Afro-Colombians, and Indigenous communities bear the brunt of the environmental impacts in the country. Deforestation, water level rise, and extreme weather events have destroyed many of the long-standing agricultural practices and threaten the future of Colombia’s agriculture.
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