Word: cropped
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...fickle. Neighbors on high ground saw friends next door lose cars to a furious downpour. The massive tide is sweeping through Illinois, Missouri and points downstream, raising questions about the adequacy of the levee system designed to guard against flooding. In Iowa the cost mounts: 20% of the corn crop has drowned, 38,000 people have been displaced, and Cedar Rapids alone may need $1 billion to recover...
...year history, WFP has handled war, famine and just about every other kind of disaster, natural or made by man. But Karamoja is pretty typical. After years of drought, the soil is little more than sand. Goats and cattle are gaunt from lack of grazing and the sorghum crop is failing. Armed cattle rustlers roam the region, making the roads too dangerous for most travel. Commercial transporters refuse to haul in WFP goods, despite escorts from Uganda's national army. Yet the biggest challenge the Rome-based agency has ever faced, executive director Josette Sheeran announced in April, came this...
WATERLOGGED FIELDS Because of heavy spring rains, many Midwest cornfields are too soggy for planting, and some seedlings that have sprouted are drowning, driving corn futures to record highs. The Department of Agriculture said 14% of the crop in Illinois and Indiana, above, was in poor or very poor condition as of June 8. Nationwide, 1 in 10 corn plants had not yet emerged from the ground, indicating a worrisome late harvest for a crop that can wither easily in the summer heat. Overall, U.S. food prices are expected to rise 5% this year...
...scorching June afternoon in Jhajjal village in southwestern Punjab, elderly men have gathered in a communal courtyard to quell the boredom of the long afternoon with a game of cards. The cotton crop has been sown, and the farmers have a few weeks' holiday before they must return to their fields. As with most small villages, everyone knows everyone else here, and the conversation centers around marriages and births. But these usually mundane topics have taken on a tragic twist, involving couples failing to conceive, children being born with genetic disorders, people of all ages succumbing to cancer. Nadar Singh...
...even more, sometimes mixing two or more products against all scientific evidence. The region virtually became a chemical laboratory. The expense of spraying put many farmers deep in debt, yet they remain vulnerable to outbreaks such as a mealy bug attack last year that destroyed 70% of the crop. "Earlier, we used less water, traditional crops and organic manure. Now, it's all chemicals," says Sarmukh Singh, a 93-year-old patriarch in Jhajjal. "We've got our land addicted, but we don't know how to fight this addiction...