Drought

Drought and Floods Affect US Farmers: Crop Insurance, Improved Farming Methods, and Assistance are the Response

Date:

Sunday, June 16, 2013 - 04:00 to Friday, June 21, 2013 - 04:00

According to the USDA, about 80 percent of agricultural land experienced drought in 2012, conditions not seen since the 1950s. Two thousand US counties were designated as disaster areas, and 67 percent of cattle and 70-75 percent of corn and soybean production was affected. The summer months were the driest, putting 28 percent of the affected farms in exceptional (worse than severe) drought conditions. The tide turned this spring for some Midwestern areas, when torrential rains made it difficult to farmers to plant their crops.

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UN Refugee Chief Says Horn of Africa Drought is the Worst Humanitarian Crisis in the World

UPDATE: The United Nations officially declared Somalia’s food crisis a famine in several parts of the country. This means that acute malnutrition rates are over thirty percent, with peaks of fifty percent in certain areas of the country’s South.

Video updates from Save the Children, UNICEF, and WorldVision are in our video gallery--here is the latest from Save the Children:

Earlier post:

A covergence of drought, rising food costs, and conflict has driven over a quarter of a million people--now quickly approaching half a million--to the Dabaab refugee camps just across the border with Somalia in Northern Kenya. Ten million people live in the drought-striken area, which lies at the crossroads of Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia. Many have not harvested crops in over two years, making this the worst drought to have hit the region in over half a century.