As one of the first developing countries to commit to specific goals to combat climate change, Mexico has implemented the Special Program on Climate Change (PECC in Spanish), which aims to reduce emissions by 51 billion metric tons of CO2 per year by 2012 .
Eighty-year-old Rogelio Vazquez doesn’t have to work on his Oaxaca coffee farm as often as he used to, now that his four sons have assumed responsibility for the family business.
Farmers on the 3,259 square kilometers of Oaxaca’s Central Valley struggle to raise their crops with limited amount of groundwater. And when Ricardo Sosa, president of his community farmer association, went to Mexico’s National Water Commission to request permission to dig more wells, he was turned down. The groundwater level had become drastically low because of drought, he was told, and overexploited by inefficient use. Under the traditional system of canal irrigation, up to half of the water never reached the field. Farmers never knew when they would receive water, or how much; it would flow for 12 hours, then not for months.
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