MEXICO CITY (AP) — Lucia Ortiz trudges through endless fields of cempasuchil flowers, the luminescent orange petals of which will soon cloak everything from city streets to cemeteries across Mexico.
Here, in the winding canals and farms on the fringes of Mexico City, the flower also known as the Mexican marigold has been farmed for generations, and takes the spotlight every year in the country’s Day of the Dead celebrations.
But as 50-year-old Ortiz and other farmers busily bundle clusters of the plant to sell in markets around the capital, they quietly wonder what will be left of their livelihood down the line.
That’s because cempasuchil growers say they’ve been left reeling by torrential rains, stretching drought and other impacts from climate change — caused by the burning of fuels like gas, oil and coal — that have grown increasingly common.
Farmers, who depend on the ebbs and flows of the weather to cultivate their crops, are on the front line on the climate crisis. This year alone, cempasuchil producers said they lost up to half their flower crop from heavy rains and flooding.
“This year, we lost a lot. We struggled to even grow the cempasuchil. There were moments in which we didn’t have the money to buy fertilizer we needed,” Ortiz said. “With the cempasuchil plants, we’ve sometimes been left with nothing.”
‘Flower of the dead’
The orange flower has become a symbol of the country’s celebrations that take place every Nov. 1 and 2. Also known as the “flower of the dead”, the cempasuchil is believed to be a point of connection between the worlds of the dead and the living, with bright petals that light the path of dead souls to the altars set out by their family.
The flowers are also a crucial economic engine across Mexico, which commerce groups predict will rake in nearly 2.7 million dollars for farmers in 2025.
Ortiz a …