Cocle Province
Coclé's livestock farming employs 1 in 5 rural workers while sharing water-stressed Santa María watershed that the record 2023-24 drought devastated.
Coclé occupies Panama's central interior where livestock farming provides the economic base that employs nearly one in five rural workers. The province's grasslands support cattle ranching that contributes to Panama's food security, the agricultural employment creating community stability that service-sector concentration in Panama City cannot replicate.
The Santa María River watershed, shared with Veraguas and Herrera, provides drinking and irrigation water that annual shortages increasingly threaten. The 2023-2024 drought—the worst in over 70 years with rainfall 43% below average—exposed the water vulnerability that climate change intensifies, the same drought that reduced Panama Canal transits affecting agricultural provinces through shared hydrological systems.
Degraded soils and extensive livestock practices create environmental challenges that sustainable farming initiatives attempt to address. Silvopastoral systems—integrating trees with pastures—represent adaptation strategies that maintain productivity while restoring ecosystem functions. Whether Coclé can transition toward sustainable practices—or whether conventional ranching continues degrading the land base—tests whether agricultural traditions can adapt to climate constraints.