Lucia Ortíz 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 Ortíz 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 it was very rainy and this caused us to have diseases, rot, and well, the cost of our crops went up,” said Ortíz.

The orange flower has become a symbol of the country’s celebrations that take place every November 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 the country, which commerce groups predict will rake in nearly 2.7 million dollars for farmers in 2025.

Ortíz and her family began growing the flower 30 years ago in their small plot of land in Xochimilco, a rural borough in the south of Mexico City where residents have continued to carry on ancient farming techniques using canals that wind through farmlands like a maze.

Every year, locals begin to plant the marigold seeds in July, and grow the plants as rainy season winds down.

But they say that they’ve been dealt a heavy blow for consecutive years as heavy rains, drought, floods and other climate shifts have made it increasingly difficult to keep their crops alive

Ortíz said the excess of rain has brought on pests, diseases and rotted the roots of her plants.

She estimates she lost at least 30% of her crop, while others say they’ve lost closer to 50%.

The family has been forced to drop money on insecticides, fertilizer and more to save their crops.

As they have, razor thin profit margins have turned into losses, and they’ve had to cut back on basics like beef and sweets to make ends meet.

Carlos Jiménez, 61, has long worked the fields of Xochimilco, but began to grow the shorter marigold plants eight years ago when he noticed the hybrid was more marketable.

As he's lost more crops and gotten lower prices for the plants because of the mildew gathering at their roots, he said he's begun considering ways to adapt, like building greenhouses.

Producers like Ortíz have considered the same. But their losses mean they have no money to build added infrastructure.

Her family and other farmers have called on local authorities for help, but say they've received just pennies on the dollar of what they need to bounce back, though the local government has said it continues to work to help offset the blow felt by farmers.

Just down the road from Ortíz’s farm, government scientists are searching for long-term solutions beyond the short-term economic relief provided by the local government.

In a small seed bank known as Toxinachcal, men in white suits meticulously pick through sprouts in a lab dish.

The scientists have been at work for a year-and-a-half saving up thousands of seed variants of native plant species, including 20 variants of cempasuchil, in jars lining giant freezers in the hopes that the storage facility will be a key tool in fighting the most averse effects of climate change.

Biologist Clara Soto Cortés, head of the seed bank, said part of the reason that the crop has been devastated is because farmers in recent years have elected to use a hybrid marigold seed variant from the United States.

The seed produces a shorter more uniform-looking plant that are easier to sell en-masse and in places like supermarkets.

But that means farmers have turned away from sturdier, native breeds, which have a longer stocks and widely vary in color, size and texture.

The genetic diversity of these Mexican breeds makes them more resilient to drastic climate shifts like the ones seen this year, Soto said.

If more climate events, like the floods that roiled producers wipe out an entire crop, Soto said the bank will make seeds available to local producers to recover their crops – this time with a more resilient variant that their ancestors have been farming for centuries.

"If it happens that for producers, for example, the rain was very strong and they lost all their seeds, what they can do is come here to the seed bank, request the seeds, and we give them native seed so that the next year they can sow native cempasúchil again," Soto said.

AP video shot by: Claudia Rosel