Drought worsens in midwest and threatens next year's corn crop

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/02/drought-worsens-midwest-corn-crop


The drought tightened its hold on Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, pushing up the area in exceptional drought to 38.12%. Photograph: Reuters


The worst drought in 50 years has intensified across the US midwest, not only condemning this year's corn crop but threatening the prospects for next year's too, new figures showed on Thursday.

The political fallout intensified as well, with growing pressure for the Obama administration to end its support for corn ethanol.

Critics say diverting food to fuel for corn ethanol production risks a global food crisis, tightening supplies and driving up prices. Nearly a third of Congress members signed on to a letter calling on the Environmental Protection Administration to scale down its support for corn ethanol.

[patrice]

1. There's also almost no wind here anymore. VERY unusual that. nt

[pscot]

2. Be glad

If it starts to blow it will raise dust. Prodigious amounts of dust.

[NickB79]

3. "From here on in, it's all downhill"

And there is little prospect of relief for the drought in this growing season, Mark Svoboda, another climatologist at the center, said. What matters now is whether there will be enough rain to get next year's crops off to a good start.

"This drought isn't going anywhere," he said. "The damage is already done. What you are looking for is enough moisture to avert a second year of drought," he said.

However, Svoboda conceded that might require a freak event, especially in the mid-west which has already passed its rain season. "In the entire corn belt, from Indiana to Nebraska to the Dakotas, we have already reached the maximum precipitation periods for year. From here on in, it's all downhill," Svoboda said.

Two years in a row of poor crops in the US grain belt could be the tipping point we've all been dreading.