Farmers Are Feeling The Pain As Drought Spreads In The Northwest : NPR - 2 views
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Nicole Berg's stunted wheat field is so short and sparse she doesn't think the combine can even reach the wheat without, as she puts it, eating rocks.
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Northwest farmers like Berg, and ranchers who depend on rain, are expecting what one farmer called a "somber harvest" this year.
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Little moisture since February in wide swaths of the region is to blame. And drought is deepening across the West, with federal drought maps showing massive and growing areas of red.
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She says with all the Western wildfires in recent years, the wild grass and forage seeds have become expensive.
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The region is parched from near the Canadian border clear to the edge of Nevada, with triple digit temps on the way making it worse.
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Earlier this year, Oregon declared drought zones for eight counties, and six more have requested it since. Now the drought is rapidly expanding into usually cooler and wetter western Oregon, according to Ryan Andrews, a hydrologist for the state's Water Resources Department.
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Jeff Marti, a drought expert for Washington's Department of Ecology, says it hasn't been this dry since the 1920s.
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"It's the story of the irrigation haves and the have nots," he says. "Meaning those folks who get their water from rivers or storage, are probably going to be fine for their irrigation needs. But the dryland users and the folks that have cattle that depend on forage on the rangelands may be more challenged."
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He says it's hard to lose animals and bloodlines that he's worked so hard to build up. He figures it could take him up to a decade to build his herd back up without going into debt.
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Most ranchers say they don't have time to dwell on the trucked-off cattle or lost crops. They're busy applying for federal disaster aid. And they're also keeping an eye out for wildfires that are always top-of-mind in the dry, hot summer, but expected to be worse because of this year's terrible drought.