Next to him stands a chagrined government agronomist who gives technical aid to farmers whose crops were destroyed last year by a killer drought in eastern Guatemala.

"There comes a time when you have to just trust in God," Castro tells his government-appointed mentor, who shakes his head looking at the field.

Prayers are what the people of this region called Progreso turn to most these days while they await what international weather forecasters are suggesting could be their second year of drought, exacerbated by the El Nino weather phenomenon.

Fulgencio Garavito, a weather system specialist with Guatemala's meteorological institute, said an increase of between 1.8 and 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1 and 1.5 degrees Celsius) in surface sea temperature off the northwestern shoulder of South America indicated a strong probability of El Nino causing further drought in this arid region on the Honduran border.

"There's a big possibility, but we're not 100 percent sure yet," he said, adding that El Progreso and neighboring Chiquimula province would be hardest hit if El Nino occurs.

Peruvian fisherman came up with the name El Nino (referring to the Christ child) for a warm current that appeared every year around Christmas and turns weather systems topsy-turvy.

Struggling families will know for sure in June, if a naturally occurring short drought, known in Guatemala as the Canicula, continues beyond its usual 10-day stretch.

Forecasters predict a brief period of rain in Progreso and Chiquimula in coming weeks. But they say that could be followed by a prolonged dry spell, possibly worse than last year's.

FIGHTING FOR LIFE

The U.N. World Food Program is working to combat child malnutrition in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala - four of Latin America's poorest countries - amid food shortages provoked by a combination of factors including drought, low coffee prices, environmental degradation and high rural unemployment.

Last year in Guatemala, the Central American country hit worst by drought, the WFP set up an emergency feeding program aimed at saving the lives of at least 6,000 children under the age of five in danger of dying in coming months from severe acute malnutrition.

"They cannot withstand a lot more of this," said Dorte Ellehammer, head of U.N. food program in Guatemala. "Now we're entering this critical period because they have no food left, and they don't have the money in reserve that they would have in past years."

Aid workers worry that another year of crop failures will fill hospitals with starving children just like last year in the Chiquimula town of Jocotan, just down the road from Progreso.

Jocotan's small church-run nutritional clinic treated as many as 73 children at a time when starvation was the most acute in October. At the time, the extremely emaciated children reminded aid workers and experts of starvation they had seen in Africa, and the crisis reached a level not often seen in the Americas.

The clinic still has 12 malnourished children in its care.

Two-year-old Silvia Lopez and 5-year-old Glenda Ramirez, both on the WFP's 6,000-strong critical list, are fighting for their lives with the help of doctors.

Born malnourished, Lopez's tiny stick-like frame fits in to a doll's push-chair. Covered in sores, Ramirez lies on a mattress unable to move or open her eyes.