The drought in America’s breadbasket is intensifying at an unprecedented rate, experts warned, driving concern food prices could soar if crops in the world’s key producer are decimated.
The US Drought Monitor reported a nearly threefold increase in areas of extreme drought over the past week in the nine Midwestern states where three quarters of the country’s corn and soybean crops are produced.
”œThat expansion of D3 or extreme conditions intensified quite rapidly and we went from 11.9 percent to 28.9 percent in just one week,” Brian Fuchs, a climatologist and Drought Monitor author, told AFP.
”œFor myself, studying drought, that’s rapid. We’ve seen a lot of things developing with this drought that were unprecedented, especially the speed.”
Almost two thirds of the continental United States are now suffering drought conditions, the largest area recorded since the Drought Monitor project started in 1999.
said her family’s farm has had good crops and bad crops but this is the first time in 60 years they will get no crop at all. Nada.
We move this way to keep from going blind. – Weldon Kees
Better hope you have food stockpiled, as it is going to get really pricey over the next few months and years……
Washington Post, By Alyssa A. Botelho & Joel Achenbach, August 2
The historic drought of 2012 is intensifying in the most parched areas of the American heartland, roasting much of the corn and soybean crop, scorching the grasslands and pastures essential for cattle grazing, and threatening to send food prices surging in the United States and abroad.
More than a fifth of the contiguous United States rates as being in an “extreme†or “exceptional†drought, according to official statistics released Thursday. And it’s hot out there: Government Âmeteorologists say this has been the hottest year on record in the lower 48 states, and there are still four more weeks of August. In the driest areas of the Great Plains and the Midwest, there are dismayingly few dark clouds on the horizon.
“The timing of this year’s heat and the real drying out that took place in June and July have been horrific for the corn and soybeans,†said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
This year was supposed to have a bumper crop of corn, with 96.4 million acres planted. But the new numbers from the National Drought Mitigation Center, based at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, show the drought intensifying in the Corn Belt. Nearly 40 million acres of corn are baking in drought conditions rated extreme or worse.
The big drought of 2012 has been tough on farmers but even more brutal on ranchers. Most crop farmers have insurance to cushion the blow of a bad harvest, and the rise in prices is a windfall for those with something to harvest and sell.
The ranchers, however, have hungry cows and a serious quandary. The grass on rangelands is dying across the country, and the price of corn and hay for animal feed is soaring. House lawmakers scrambled Thursday to pass a $383 million drought-assistance bill that would give relief to ranchers and other livestock producers. The vote was 223 to 197.
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Just three weeks ago, the portion of the lower 48 states receiving the two most serious drought designations stood at 11.6 percent. That area has now doubled to 22.3 percent. The jump in the past week from 20.6 percent represents an increase of about 32 million acres.
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The drought-aid legislation passed by the House on Thursday would provide up to $100,000 for each of the hardest-hit livestock producers. That bill still has to pass the Senate and might not become law until fall.
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Economist James Robb of the Denver-based Livestock Marketing Information Center said a rancher can normally turn a profit of about $180 per cow. This year, that’s going to be more like $80 a cow.
“With 30 million head of beef cattle in the U.S., a loss of over $100 per animal is huge,†Robb said.