HEIRS OF THE LAND. Portrait of Alfredo Cortés López, 30, and his 4-year-old daughter Ivet Cortés Rodríguez in the agroforestry system of their family, where they cultivate corn, wild greens (quelites), fruit trees, cacti, and other foods that allow the family to subsist in the community of Rio Blanco Tonaltepec, Teposcolula, Oaxaca, Mexico. "We have native corn varieties from our community, which makes them highly adapted. We even have corn that's even more resistant to drought, which is planted in January, February, September. We call those corn varieties 'cajete' because they're planted using a different technique. So, I attribute that to the genetics of our corn, which is very resilient, well adapted to the environment, and each year it adapts more and becomes stronger. The climate has changed significantly. When I remember my childhood, it used to rain a lot here. The river would fill up during the rainy season. It would fill up all the way to the top. There was plenty of water. There used to be hailstorms, quite a few. The hail would cover the ground with about 20-30 cm of hail. There was more rain, and it benefited us a lot. But now, the rains used to start around May. May until November, it would still rain in November and even some drizzles in December. But not anymore. It has changed. In the past few years, it rained until August, until this month. It rained until August just one year ago. This year, it started around May, but it stopped raining for almost 2 and a half months. So, it only rained recently and the day before yesterday it finished raining. There's very little rain, just 2 small rains, and the cornfields were already withering. When there's a lack of rain, for us as farmers who depend on the land, it does make us sad. We wonder: Will it rain or what will happen? Will we have a harvest or not? How will our crops do? It really saddens us because we don't see rain and the cornfields wilt. In my community, there's a lot of migration. Everyone goes to the United States, Mexico City, other places, and they leave when they're young, they don't come back. Most have gone. There are only about 3 or 4 of us young people left in the village. Most are elderly. I decided to stay because I was instilled with this from a young age and I saw it as a good way of life. I liked it and I'm passionate about farming and animals, truly. And that's the reason why I'm still here. So, I'm here, working and putting in more effort each time to keep cultivating, also innovating because with climate changes, we need to innovate. We've made trenches to retain moisture, we've worked differently in the fields, we've been innovating. Nowadays, there's more awareness, people leave some crop residue in the plots, they use organic fertilizers," he explains. Alfredo is working with CEDICAM (Center for Integral Peasant Development of the Mixteca), a local partner of CRS, which believes that caring for the soil, reforesting, preserving native seeds that have demonstrated resilience to severe droughts, and investing in agricultural enterprises to motivate the youth to stay in their lands is the path. It's the only path.