In the lead up to Copenhagen’s climate change conference in December, Earth Beat is airing occasional profiles of people around the world whose lives have been affected by climate change.

This first story takes you to the cotton farms in the Koulikoro region of Mali. This year's rains haven’t arrived on time, which has hit the harvest hard. Martin Vogl went to visit a plantation meant to be the farmer's model operation this year, but he found a very different situation.

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Listen to the rest of this week's Earth Beat.