In 2006, Honduras had a homicide rate of 59.1 per 100,000 people, making it the most dangerous country in the world outside of a war zone. There are many contributing factors to this rate of violence, from socio-economic inequality to the 2009 coup. At the same time, the Honduran economy is heavily reliant on its agricultural sector. Drastic shifts in harvests can have negative impacts on vulnerable small-scale farmers, increasing the odds of migration or joining illegal organizations. As a result, the risk of violence may increase. To test the sequence of rainfall variation, harvest production levels and homicides, I conducted a study using data on rainfall and homicide rates from 2005 to 2016 to see if variation in rainfall had any effect on homicide rates in Honduras.
My results showed that rainfall has drastically more influence on homicide rates when years are split into wet and dry seasons. Rainfall variation from the average had little connection to homicide rates from 2005 to 2016. This may be due to the general level of drought Honduras currently experiences. Any water during wet seasons may be a good thing. Dry seasons also had a similarly weak connection. However, when controlled for the 2009 coup, rainfall deviation during dry seasons had an incredible correlation with homicide levels for subsequent years with an R-squared value of 0.84. From 2005 to 2016, dry season months averaged 500 inches of rain. Rainfall drastically below this average resulted in higher homicides in subsequent years and vice versa.
There are several implications for these findings. NGOs and state actors should focus efforts on continuing the irrigation of Honduran farmlands. Honduran subsistence farmers, which account for 70% of the Honduran agricultural sector, rely primarily on rain fed agriculture. This practice puts farmers at risk when there is extended drought or flooding from extreme rainfall events. Currently less than 10% of the Honduran agricultural sector uses irrigation. Developing irrigation for the rest of the nation will lower the risk of economic straits from poor harvests due to rainfall variation. This in turn will increase the opportunity costs of migrating, joining illegal organizations, or engaging in interpersonal conflict. As climate change continues to interfere with regular rainfall and temperature levels, it will be important to continue to develop strategies to mitigate and adapt in order to maintain stability, especially in developing nations. Further research could incorporate temperature into analyses to account for evaporation of water from soil and localized weather and crop data to get clearer pictures of where and how rainfall deviation affects different communities.
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