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The lives, health, and livelihoods of the people living in Nicaragua’s Dry Corridor are at even greater risk in 2026. Forecasts that the El Niño weather phenomenon will be stronger than in previous years suggest that these areas will receive even less rainfall than they normally do.
The lack of rain is compounded by another shortage: resources. This has become especially acute since the dictatorship expelled the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) from the country. The specialized agency had been responsible for securing funding to implement projects benefiting residents of these regions and mitigating the effects of drought.
The blow was made even worse by the outlawing of hundreds of NGOs, including dozens that delivered aid to these communities or supported the efforts of small-scale farmers trying to cope with the hardships caused by harsh climatic conditions.
Leoncio is one of them. Born—as were many of his ancestors—in a municipality in western Nicaragua that forms part of the Dry Corridor, he went from planting trigo millón (sorghum) to working in smale-scale mining. He had previously tried growing corn, but the conditions of both the land and the weather proved that it was neither very profitable nor very productive.
Meanwhile, news spread that investment in the La India Mine, in León, would be expanded, so he decided to try his luck as a güirisero—a small-scale gold miner. So far, abandoning farming to search for gold beneath the earth has proved to be the right decision, both for him and for neighbors who made the same transition, because they now earn higher incomes.
Not everyone’s story ends the same way. In fact, it is the poorest—those without access to resources—who have had to leave agriculture for mining or other occupations. Larger landowners who have wells, meanwhile, still have water to irrigate part of their crops or provide drinking water for their livestock.
Although several municipalities in the Dry Corridor have cooperatives that allow residents to support one another, Raul, a professional with years of experience managing and evaluating projects of this kind, points out that “farmers are afraid to organize because the government could interpret it as politically motivated.”
Farming Options in the Dry Corridor
Raul explains that successful economic activity is difficult under the region’s prevailing climatic conditions. As a result, the production achieved by small farmers is generally enough only to feed their families, not to accumulate capital. Still, not everything is bleak.
There is, for example, the mining option chosen by Leoncio. It exists because “there is a contradiction: the land is poor for agriculture, but it may be rich in minerals.” For some families, mining provides jobs, cash income, and an alternative during hard times.
“Economically, it works as a substitute: when agriculture loses its ability to generate income, mining absorbs the labor force,” the expert explains. But, like everything else, it comes with both benefits and risks.
Among the benefits are job creation, increased cash flow, and a boost to local commerce. Among the risks are heavy dependence on international commodity prices, the largely informal nature of the work, serious environmental impacts, and competition for water.
“It is not necessarily a structural solution. More often, it is a short-term strategy for economic adaptation,” he explained.
Another trend that has emerged is temporary migration as a family strategy to diversify income. People travel to other regions for seasonal agricultural work or seek employment in construction, commerce, transportation, repair shops, food sales, local services, or migrate internationally. “It is an important shift—from a land-based economy to a service-based economy,” he said.
“Families no longer depend solely on the farm. The new model combines farming with remittances and temporary work. This reduces climate-related risks, but it can also weaken the rural economy because it loses its younger population.”
For those who choose to remain, another option is to apply what they learned through development projects by reforesting with productive tree species such as fruit trees and implementing agroforestry systems. These can include living fences and forage trees. Such measures help retain soil moisture, reduce erosion, improve soil quality, and generate additional products.
Raul concludes that parts of the Dry Corridor are developing a hybrid economy. Whereas family income once depended almost entirely on traditional agriculture, it now combines climate-adapted farming with small-scale livestock production, outside employment, mining, remittances, and services.
“The population is transitioning from a purely agricultural economy to a diversified survival economy. Nicaragua’s great challenge is to ensure that this adaptation does not remain merely defensive—a matter of surviving—but evolves into true territorial development.” To become sustainable, he says, this transformation must include higher productivity, the creation of value chains, agro-industrial development, and, above all, a reliable water supply.
Bureaucracy and Inefficiency
When the government expelled the FAO and dismantled many of the social and peasant organizations that worked in the Dry Corridor, residents and small producers in those municipalities lost the support and protection those organizations had provided. These institutions had been responsible for obtaining funding. As a result, “institutional and organizational support has weakened under this government,” Raul said.
Even organizations that once provided assistance, such as the Rural Workers’ Association (ATC) and the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG)—both aligned with the government—no longer play the same role.
Fortunately, not everything has disappeared. Although FAO programs, along with those of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), have ended, some World Food Program (WFP) projects remain active. In particular, the WFP continues to work with Nicaragua’s Ministry of Education to provide “nutritious meals to 144,000 students in 2,500 educational centers—including preschools, primary schools, and distance-learning centers—in 47 municipalities of the Dry Corridor.”
For decades, this vast region of Nicaragua has been the focus of numerous projects aimed at alleviating water shortages, introducing drought-resistant crop varieties, and developing alternative livelihoods. The problem, according to Raul and two other sources who spoke with CONFIDENCIAL on condition of anonymity, is the efficiency
—or inefficiency—with which these resources have been managed.
“Historically, a great deal of international cooperation reached the Dry Corridor to reduce the impact of drought, which hits these regions especially hard,” said Manuel, an agricultural professional who worked on several such projects. “There was a lot of foreign aid, a lot of international cooperation, and many projects. But now that support is gone or has become severely restricted.”
Based on his experience, Manuel believes that “international cooperation and development projects spoiled producers.”
He recalls seeing many farmers simply waiting for the next project that would benefit them. “They would just hold out their hands without worrying about putting into practice what they had learned,” he said.
Their strategy was to wait for another project the following year to receive another round of assistance. “Those people are suffering a great deal now that international cooperation has declined,” Manuel noted.
Álvaro, who once directed an NGO that implemented projects in the Dry Corridor, says that “many of those organizations were really interest groups submitting proposals to carry out reforestation campaigns.” The proposals would go before a committee for approval, after which funding would be released to begin the work.
“A large portion of that money went toward office expenses, vehicle purchases, and payments to interest groups. In the end, almost nothing reached the small farmers,” he asserted.
Raul agrees, noting that “between 38% and 40% of that aid is consumed by administrative costs and bureaucracy.” In any project—whether financed by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the FAO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), or another institution—“between 15% and 30% remains with the organization itself to cover management and oversight costs. It’s outrageous! The country receives only the remainder to implement the project. The aid arrives already greatly diminished.”
Raul believes that under current circumstances, the most likely scenario is not that the problem will disappear but that it will worsen unless the country changes its production model.
“It would be very difficult for the government alone to implement these changes without strong backing from international organizations, including the FAO, which was expelled from Nicaragua. The FAO played a key role in coordinating efforts and securing resources that provided vital support to these regions,” he recalled.
According to a WFP report, Nicaragua’s Dry Corridor is home to about one million people spread across 63 municipalities, representing 37% of the country. Subsistence and small-scale farming remain the primary source of livelihood for a large share of this population. Within this context, climate variability and the effects of climate change are among the most significant challenges to sustainable development.
“According to the FAO,” the report states, “climate variability in the Dry Corridor has its greatest impact on agriculture and, secondarily, on livestock.” The problem is that since the FAO was expelled, no one has been securing resources for the people who depend on them.
