The Chili Farmers Struggling To Survive Amid Pakistan's Historic Floods

A worker rests on a pile of chilies at a wholesale market in Kunri on October 15.

Kunri, in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province, has been dubbed the "chili capital" of Asia but recent floods have left farmers struggling to keep their businesses alive.

A chili crop spoiled by rainwater was photographed on October 15.

Beginning in June, floods that have been called the worst in Pakistan’s history inundated vast swaths of land across the country.
 

A herd of buffalo wade toward a dry field in Kunri.

According to recent reports, 75 percent of districts in Sindh Province remain flooded, leaving many farms that supplied chilies to the world's markets unable to produce.

A truck loaded with sacks of chilies stops at a market in Kunri in February -- shortly before flooding hit the region.

Pakistan is the world's fourth-largest producer of chilies, and with agriculture as its economic backbone, the country is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Leman Raj, a chili farmer in Kunri, stands beside a draining pump for water.

Forty-year-old Raj told Reuters: "My crops suffered heavily from the heat, then the rains started, and the weather changed completely. Now, because of the heavy rains we have suffered heavy losses in our crops, and this is what has happened to the chilies," he said, holding up plants from a rotten crop.

Farmers take a break while preparing flood-damaged land in Kunri on October 15.

Officials in Pakistan have estimated the damages from the flooding at over $40 billion



 

A farmer plants chili seeds in Kunri.

One farmer told Reuters he sacrificed his crop of cotton in order to save his chili plants during the height of the floods.

 

A worker burns damaged cotton plants in Kunri on October 16.

Kunri farmer Faisal Gill says he built low earth walls around his cotton fields, then, "dug up trenches in the chili crop...." As floodwaters pooled among his chili plants he pumped water into the sealed area around the neighboring cotton plants. The desperate measure saved around 30 percent of Gill's chilies.

A family harvests red chili peppers in Kunri in February, before floods wiped out much of the town's chili fields.
 

A chili market in Kunri in February

A local man told Reuters that since the floods, less than a quarter the amount of chili is now being sold in Kunri’s wholesale market compared to last year.

A farmer spreads chilies to dry in Kunri.

The floodwaters that have wreaked havoc in Sindh and elsewhere across Pakistan are forecast to linger for another two to three months.