Exceptional drought conditions ‘pretty much shut down’ Texas crop production

By Robert Burns, Texas AgriLife10 May 2011 Crop and forage production has “pretty much shut down” due to severe to exceptional drought conditions, said a Texas AgriLife Extension Service statewide crop expert. “If you look at the U.S. drought monitor, about 26 percent of the state of Texas is an exceptional drought,” said Dr. Travis […]

Video: Wet, cold weather weakening Washington state berry crop – ‘We’ve never had to deal with this before in my lifetime’

By JAKE WHITTENBERG, KING 5 News10 May 2011 WHATCOM COUNTY, Wash. – Our La Niña winter is starting to show its affect on area crops. Berry farmers in Whatcom and Skagit Counties are struggling to deal with unusually cold and wet weather. Some berry farmers report being about three weeks behind on their harvest. “We […]

Severe drought forces release of water from Three Gorges Dam

YICHANG, May 7 (Xinhua) – The Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydropower project, is expected to increase its water discharges over three days in a bid to fight the severe drought that has ravaged Central China’s Hubei province and some southern provinces since February. The discharge speed of the dam will accelerate to 7,000 […]

Iowa losing topsoil up to 50 times faster than the replacement rate

By WILLIAM NEUMAN12 April 2011 When prices for corn and soybeans surged last fall, Bill Hammitt, a farmer in the fertile hill country of western Iowa, began to see the bulldozers come out, clearing steep hillsides of trees and pastureland to make way for more acres of the state’s staple crops. Now, as spring planting […]

Graph of the Day: Exceedance of Critical Eutrophication Loads by Nitrogen Deposition, 2010

Exceedance of critical loads for eutrophication by nitrogen deposition in 2010 under current European legislation (courtesy of CCE, 2008). Nitrogen deposition remains a threat to biodiversity across large areas of Europe (CCE, 2008). This concern is reflected in the incorporation of an indicator for nitrogen deposition under the Streamlining European Biodiversity Indicators 2010 (SEBI, 2010) […]

World Catastrophe Map: Extreme weather is all about records

1. Record Breaking Mississippi River Levels Cause Levee Demo The Big Muddy rolled relentlessly southward, causing havoc as the record flood level drove citizens from their homes. Although the Army Corps of Engineers was forced to dynamite the levees to save Cairo, IL, the disaster is a movable catastrophe. 2. Tornado Attack in the South […]

Graph of the Day: FAO Food Price Index, 1990-April 2011

The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 232 points in April 2011, virtually unchanged from the revised March estimate, 36 percent above April 2010, but 2 percent below its peak in February 2011.  A sharp increase in international grain prices in April more than offset declines in dairy, sugar, and rice, while oils and meat […]

Climate change cuts a France’s worth of wheat out of global agriculture, and a Mexico’s worth of maize

By John Timmer5 May 2011 With all the focus on the potential future impacts of climate change and ocean acidification, it’s possible to lose track of the fact that the CO2 concentrations and temperatures have already risen significantly, and that we might already be seeing the impacts of climate change. In fact, plenty of evidence, […]

Survivor of Dust Bowl now battles a fiercer drought – ‘The community is drying up’

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE3 May 2011 BOISE CITY, Okla. — While tornadoes and floods have ravaged the South and the Midwest, the remote western edge of the Oklahoma Panhandle is quietly enduring a weather calamity of its own: its longest drought on record, even worse than the Dust Bowl, when incessant winds scooped up the […]

IMF sounds alarm over rising food, fuel prices

By MARK KAPCHANGA4 May 2011 The International Monetary Fund is warning that poverty levels will rise in Africa, unless the current spike in food and fuel prices is arrested. In its latest world economic outlook on Africa, the Washington-based institution says the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be probably be delayed as […]

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