drought

Snowpack in the Cascades and Sierra Nevada shrank during warm February weather, said the USDA in its third forecast of snow and water conditions in the West.

With California headed for a fourth year of drought, the outlook for the growing season is grim. "But our situation is not hopeless," says Helene Dillard, dean of agriculture at UC-Davis.

Drought-hardy sorghum is a minor feed grain for U.S. farmers. Compared to king corn, it is grown on a sliver of land, mostly in the Plains. " Now some U.S. food manufacturers are capitalizing on its most marketable trait: Sorghum is gluten-free.

Stanford scientists say the risk of drought in California is being increased by climate change caused by human activity, reports the Contra Costa Times.

The Interior Department says there will be no irrigation water for most farmers in California's Central Valley for the second year in a row, calling it "an unprecedented situation."

After decades of being treated as a marine nuisance, beavers "could help ease the water woes" that pit farmers against fishermen in California, says the magazine onEarth.

The Great Plains and U.S. Southwest, the hub of U.S. wheat and cattle production, will face persistent drought during the second half of this century that will be "worse than anything seen" and due primarily to climate change caused by humans, says a study by...

Some 37 percent of the winter wheat area, mainly the southern Plains, mid-South and inland sections of the Pacific Northwest, is under drought, says a monthly summary by USDA chief meteorologist Brad Rippey.

The snowpack in California's Sierra Nevada is 25 percent of normal for late January, "on par with some of the worst years on record," says the San Francisco Chronicle.

Retail beef prices are forecast to climb by 5.5 percent this year, double the overall rate for food inflation, says USDA's monthly Food Price Outlook. "Most retail beef prices, on average are...at record highs, even after adjusting for inflation," said USDA.

A rainy December is putting water into California's depleted reservoirs and snowpack on the Sierra Nevada, says the San Francisco Chronicle.

Drought will persist or intensify during winter in Washington state, Oregon and the northern two-thirds of California as well as the wheat-growing southern Plains, forecasts the National Weather Service.

Wheat scientists will borrow genes from wild ancestors of the staple grain to give it stamina to withstand the stresses of climate change, says the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, known by its Spanish abbreviation CIMMYT.

Precipitation in late December and early January in California "did not provide enough moisture to dent long-term drought," says the weekly Drought Monitor.

Two researchers collected new tree-ring samples from blue oak trees in central and southern California to see how the state's three-year drought compares to weather in the past.

California is the world's largest grower of almonds, with trees on 860,000 acres, a crop that be imperiled especially in the drought now entering its fourth year, says the New York Times.

Grocery store prices for beef are at record highs and the government says they will rise again in the new year, although not as sharply as this year.

One-quarter of the world’s crops, from bananas and plantains to rice, wheat, corn, and soybeans, are grown in areas where the water supply is highly stressed or highly variable, said the World Resources Institute on Wednesday. Rice, wheat, and corn, three of the most important crops, are particularly vulnerable, it said.