Word: drought
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...West Germany went months without rain, while their fields dried out and their crops shriveled. "My potatoes that should be fist-sized are as big as my thumb," complained a farmer near the small Bavarian village of Hersbruck. "That's what this cursed weather has done." The drought has also turned what promised to be a record British grain harvest into a disaster, lowering harvest expectations from 17.5 million tons to an anticipated 13.8 million. The grain shortage, in turn, is expected to drive the price of animal feed up by some 20%, thus raising the price of beef...
...also hit hard at the Continent's power systems. With many rivers flowing at only a third of their normal volume and hydroelectric output cut, French utilities have had to burn some 2 million extra tons of oil to meet customer demands for power. As the drought continued in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, rains began to fall in Western Europe-too little and too late to be of much help...
...summer his phone is forever ringing with the news that some Kuwaiti sheik or Saudi princess has just left Harrods and was last seen heading for the restaurant for coffee and mouhallabiya. Kassouf and his staff are caught smack in the middle of an Arab invasion that makes the drought-dry London streets look almost like Cairo...
...harvest of oats will plummet 24% below last year's, to 499 million bu.-the lowest level in 95 years-and the output of barley will drop 19%, to 311 million bu. Part of the reason is that the largest oats- and barley-producing states are bedeviled by drought. Most agricultural counties in the Dakotas, Wisconsin and Minnesota are critically dry; many have been declared disaster areas. The situation is so bad for farmers, says Agronomist Howard Wilkins of North Dakota State University, that "Santa Claus isn't going to come this year...
...drought extends back almost a year, right through a mild winter with little snow and a dry spring. Now the subsoil is starved for moisture. South Dakota's grasslands, for example, never had a chance to turn green; they are sere and yellow. Crops planted in the spring-oats, barley, durum, hard red wheat and even some corn-have been stunted by the scorching sun. Under normal conditions, they would be knee-high by this time. In many cases, they have, in fact, grown barely six inches tall...