Archive for December 21st, 2012

Credit: AgriLife Today

The drought is affecting the corn harvest, as droughts tend to do. Back on August 31 the U.S. Department of Agriculture noted “a significant rise in the proportion of poor and very poor corn crops this summer, due largely to the extreme drought across much of the center of the nation.”

According to EcoWatch the USDA’s Agricultural Weather and Drought Update for August 16 found “85 percent of the U.S. corn crop is located within a drought area, with nearly half of the crop area experiencing extreme or exceptional drought levels.”

The Financial Times noted the week before Christmas that “60 percent of the U.S. high plains, a critical wheat production area in the center of the country, was suffering from extreme or exceptional drought, up from 58 percent the previous week,” with the hardest-hit areas being Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma. Read the rest of this entry »