drought

Forecasts call for an above-average monsoon in India but it won't be enough to restore depleted groundwater levels in rural areas after two years of below-normal rainfall, says CNN. The monsoon is not expected until June and for the moment, a heatwave is adding to the misery.

The world may be headed for its first tight rice supply since the spike in global food prices nearly a decade ago, says a social scientist at the International Rice Research Institute, part of a network of agricultural research centers.

The food security situation in Ethiopia is worsening, says the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, and as the main growing season approaches, 10.2 million people are affected by successive crop failures and livestock deaths caused by drought since 2015.

“Snowpack levels in the West are melting faster than climate hydrologists have seen in nearly four decades, bringing the snowpack far below normal in most states in the West,” says High Country News.

In parts of California, the historic drought is creating a new breed of wildfire that burns so hot that the scorched soil left behind erodes instead of reseeds, says Lisa Morehouse, who reported on one farming community’s efforts to revive its land after last year’s 70,000-acre Butte Fire. The story was co-produced by FERN and KQED’s The California Report.

“Once seeds are secured in gene banks, it is a never-ending — and expensive— job to keep them viable,” writes Virginia Gewin at Yale Environment 360.

Low water levels in the Mekong Delta has allowed seawater to penetrate 56 miles inland, ruining vast swathes of cropland, says Reuters.

Drought coverage in the United States dropped to a five-and-a-half-year low on March 15, when only 12.4 percent of the contiguous 48 states was affected. The figure climbed to 16.7 percent, an increase of 4.3 points, in the following three weeks, says USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey.

Known as WaterFix, California’s proposed $15-billion water project to divert the Sacramento River won’t bring much more water to farmers or cities, says the Los Angeles Times.

In its first Crop Progress report of the year, the USDA rated 59 percent of the winter wheat crop in good or excellent condition, 15 points higher than a year ago.

In California’s Sacramento Valley, farms and cities will receive 100 percent of their contracted federal water this year, but farmers farther west in the San Joaquin Valley will only see 5 percent of their promised water, reports the Los Angeles Times.

A massive farm in Central Valley, California, is teaming with Israeli water experts running the first ever experiment with drip irrigation for rice production in the U.S.

The Westlands Water District, the “biggest of big shots in the water world of California’s Central Valley,” was fined $195,000 last week by the Securities and Exchange Commission for altering records to hide drought-related expenses, reports the L.A. Times.

California farmers made $53.5 billion in sales in 2014, even as Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency and mandated urban water cuts for 2015. The record sales figures, which represent the most recent data available, were released in a new report by the state agriculture department.

Lake Shasta is 79-percent full, the first time California's largest reservoir has exceeded its average level for mid-March in nearly three years, "after a wet weekend in northern California," reports the Los Angeles Times.

Drought in southern Africa has "significantly dampened production prospects, with severe negative implications for food security in the sub-region," says the FAO's quarterly Crop Prospects and Food Situation report.