Drought-damaged states face poor outlook as dry weather persists

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/10/drought-damaged-states-poor-outlook?intcmp=122


Farmer Matt Johnson pauses while in a dead area of his popcorn crop fields on his family's farm in Indiana. Photograph: Brent Smith/Reuters

A persistent drought held its grip on America's bread basket on Thursday, with no sign of relief for the four main wheat-growing states.

The poor outlook for winter wheat, which accounts for about 70% of the US crop, has raised fears about further food prices shocks, after widespread failure of last year's corn and soybean crops.

Conditions in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas, which produce about a third of the country's wheat crop, remained unchanged – virtually the worst on record, according to the US Drought Monitor.

The Obama administration declared large areas of all four states a natural disaster area on Wednesday, because of the persistent drought.

[madrchsod]

1. where i live we have had 4-5 yrs of near and record rainfall

now we are close to 16 inches below normal. the one inch of rain we may get this weekend won`t do much. food is going to be very expensive.

[phantom power]

2. this is going to get hard to ignore

[I am B]

3. take a look at Australia today

This will be the mid-west soon.
We need to take immediate action.
Everyone needs to wake-up.
We can't even get people to recycle plastic bottles.
We need to stop flying planes and start making more 100% electric cars and trains.
We need to stop burning stuff like coal, natural gas and wood.
Solar power would be cost effective if we invest more.
If the post office and all governments vehicles used electric cars the market would be huge.

I will be speaking more from rm 105.