I honestly don't think the "average American" who isn't involved with agriculture comprehends just how economically devastating this drought will be. And if it becomes a prolonged multi-year event like the Dustbowl, it could lead to serious shortages, massive inflation in food prices and overall inflation, and possible destabilization of the overall society.

Not good, folks, NOT good. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

" unless some sort of miracle occurs and everyone is committed to doing whatever is necessary to at least slow down this disaster scenario."

Miracles don't happen when it comes to physics, and anything that depends on the majority of humans voluntarily choosing less comfort, less entertainment, less of anything than what they can get ahold of will certainly not happen.

Earth isn't that big (anymore). There is not infinite space for our waste and infinite resources. I think we are becoming more aware of this. If you have a smokestack in your living room it's going to get smoky. If you remove the peel from an orange it's going to dry out.

I know this is about the drought, but I can't help but comment on rising prices. Many items have doubled or tripled in price in a relatively short period of time. I am not sure if this is related to oil and transportation cost or what, but when reporters mention unemployment or stocks or the economy it seems like they are often missing the point.

To do well, they have to buy them feed, not just pasture. The price of feed has doubled over the past 2-3 years, and it no longer makes any sense to do it.

Multiply this by all the small and large farms and you see where this is going.

Meanwhile NC passed legislation "forbidding science" from mentioning sea level rise.

Sticking their heads in the sand...

Peanut butter is another price we are watching. It jumped a lot last year and we are concerned it will get even worse.

In any event, I think it is a bit early to panic even for those of us who believe in global warming/climate change. Instead, we have to do what we can to stop destroying the Ozone layer, stop polluting the atmosphere and cut down on the burning of fossil fuels.

So Romney said on the first day of a hypothetical Romney presidency he will approve one more Canadian tar sands pipeline and get it flowing right across those amber waves of grain until it reached the Gulf of Mexico.
Yes, this is Romney's energy plan. Day two, Romney will start dismantling those pesky environmental regs that he believes are needlessly cutting down on corporate profits.

But.

It's still a matter of distribution. Annual world grain production is 2 odd pounds per capita per day. That's just cereals, not counting non-cereal staples nor veggies, fruits...etc.

That is enough to feed the entire planet--twice over.

My guess is there are some big chicken producers who are seeing the drought, then spreadsheet their likely upcoming feed costs, and decide it's time to dump much of their live birds on the market -- at any price.

I wonder (and worry) when I see prices that low. Will they ever come again? Or years from now, will I be boring young people with lines like "Oh, I remember chicken when it cost less than two bucks a pound! Really! No, not twenty-two -- two! Old dollars, ones that meant something..."

All the best,
-Patrick
("and we had the electric on 24 hours a day, even weekends...")

Prices on food products have already been rising incredibly fast since 2008, after that ridiculous jump in oil prices. Food manufacturers have tried to hide it by changing packaging, downsizing products, etc., but there is only so much you can downsize.

There may be plenty of grain being produced world wide, but most people prefer to eat their grain in the form of animal flesh - a very inefficient use of grain.

And using corn to produce ethanol? Another very inefficient use of grain.

What on earth are we doing?

Who are we, and what precisely are the things to do? Is the 'we' actually 'me', and what we can do is for me to not have or do certain things that I want and can afford? Multiply that times the 3 or 4 billion people with access to some form of the fossil-fuel economy and it becomes clear that no significant conservation will happen. On the contrary, in absolute terms humanity has more impact every day.

My guess is there are some big chicken producers who are seeing the drought, then spreadsheet their likely upcoming feed costs, and decide it's time to dump much of their live birds on the market -- at any price.

Boneless skinless chicken breast (no water added) has been sold at a small profit, zero profit or a loss leader as long as I can remember.

These sales lure customers into the stores where they make higher margin purchases and numerous impulse purchases.

It's always on sale at 1 or 2 of the numerous stores we shop, plus their are more sales early in the foodstamp cycle.

This week boneless skinless chicken breast are on sale for $1.99 a pound or less at Grand Union, Price Chopper and Hannaford. Customers shopping at Price Chopper also get a discount on gas based on purchases.

Walmart, Save-A-Lot and other stores sell it cheaper, but it's the kind with up-to 15 percent water added.

The last time we were at Save-A-Lot they had an unadvertised special - frozen boneless skinless chicken breast for $1.49 per pound.

Absolutely brutal competition between grocery resellers for foodstamp dollars, stagnant/declining incomes, plus shoppers opting out or trading down has caused many of them to eat many price increases, plus offer more loss leaders, marketing promotions etc.

begin quote "The historic drought of 2012 is intensifying in the most parched areas of the American heartland, roasting much of the corn and soybean crop, scorching the grasslands and pastures essential for cattle grazing, and threatening to send food prices surging in the United States and abroad.

More than a fifth of the contiguous United States rates as being in an "extreme" or "exceptional" drought, according to official statistics released Thursday. And it's hot out there: Government meteorologists say this has been the hottest year on record in the lower 48 states, and there are still four more weeks of August. In the driest areas of the Great Plains and the Midwest, there are dismayingly few dark clouds on the horizon.

"The timing of this year's heat and the real drying out that took place in June and July have been horrific for the corn and soybeans," said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This year was supposed to have a bumper crop of corn, with 96.4 million acres planted. But the new numbers from the National Drought Mitigation Center, based at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, show the drought intensifying in the Corn Belt. Nearly 40 million acres of corn are baking in drought conditions rated extreme or worse. snip

Just three weeks ago, the portion of the lower 48 states receiving the two most serious drought designations stood at 11.6 percent. That area has now doubled to 22.3 percent. The jump in the past week from 20.6 percent represents an increase of about 32 million acres."

"drought diaries"

Worth noting that if their conclusions are correct, the sorts of current drought will soon be considered 'the good old days'.

"CORVALLIS, Ore. The chronic drought that hit western North America from 2000 to 2004 left dying forests and depleted river basins in its wake and was the strongest in 800 years, scientists have concluded, but they say those conditions will become the "new normal" for most of the coming century.
Such climatic extremes have increased as a result of global warming, a group of 10 researchers reported today in Nature Geoscience. And as bad as conditions were during the 2000-04 drought, they may eventually be seen as the good old days.

Climate models and precipitation projections indicate this period will actually be closer to the "wet end" of a drier hydroclimate during the last half of the 21st century, scientists said.

Aside from its impact on forests, crops, rivers and water tables, the drought also cut carbon sequestration by an average of 51 percent in a massive region of the western United States, Canada and Mexico, although some areas were hit much harder than others. As vegetation withered, this released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with the effect of amplifying global warming.

"Climatic extremes such as this will cause more large-scale droughts and forest mortality, and the ability of vegetation to sequester carbon is going to decline," said Beverly Law, a co-author of the study, professor of global change biology and terrestrial systems science at Oregon State University, and former science director of AmeriFlux, an ecosystem observation network.

"During this drought, carbon sequestration from this region was reduced by half," Law said. "That's a huge drop. And if global carbon emissions don't come down, the future will be even worse."

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA, U.S. Department of Energy, and other agencies. The lead author was Christopher Schwalm at Northern Arizona University. Other collaborators were from the University of Colorado, University of California at Berkeley, University of British Columbia, San Diego State University, and other institutions.

It's not clear whether or not the current drought in the Midwest, now being called one of the worst since the Dust Bowl, is related to these same forces, Law said. This study did not address that, and there are some climate mechanisms in western North America that affect that region more than other parts of the country.

But in the West, this multi-year drought was unlike anything seen in many centuries, based on tree ring data. The last two periods with drought events of similar severity were in the Middle Ages, from 977-981 and 1146-1151. The 2000-04 drought affected precipitation, soil moisture, river levels, crops, forests and grasslands.

Ordinarily, Law said, the land sink in North America is able to sequester the equivalent of about 30 percent of the carbon emitted into the atmosphere by the use of fossil fuels in the same region. However, based on projected changes in precipitation and drought severity, scientists said that this carbon sink, at least in western North America, could disappear by the end of the century.

"Areas that are already dry in the West are expected to get drier," Law said. "We expect more extremes. And it's these extreme periods that can really cause ecosystem damage, lead to climate-induced mortality of forests, and may cause some areas to convert from forest into shrublands or grassland."

During the 2000-04 drought, runoff in the upper Colorado River basin was cut in half. Crop productivity in much of the West fell 5 percent. The productivity of forests and grasslands declined, along with snowpacks. Evapotranspiration decreased the most in evergreen needleleaf forests, about 33 percent.

The effects are driven by human-caused increases in temperature, with associated lower soil moisture and decreased runoff in all major water basins of the western U.S., researchers said in the study.

Although regional precipitations patterns are difficult to forecast, researchers in this report said that climate models are underestimating the extent and severity of drought, compared to actual observations. They say the situation will continue to worsen, and that 80 of the 95 years from 2006 to 2100 will have precipitation levels as low as, or lower than, this "turn of the century" drought from 2000-04.

"Towards the latter half of the 21st century the precipitation regime associated with the turn of the century drought will represent an outlier of extreme wetness," the scientists wrote in this study.

These long-term trends are consistent with a 21st century "megadrought," they said." end quote

Here, early summer had us in the same hydrological profile as the 2002 exceptional drought. We've had a bit of rain since, but not enough budge the needle. If we get the same dismal snowfall as last winter, we'll be worse than 2002

"I expect meat prices might go down as more animals go in for slaughter. Might go down. The cost of feeding them will be too high."

Yes, Duluth and & talked about that July 25th on the "skyrocketing food prices" thread. Probably a pretty small window, though. I'm checking those prices daily...

I wouldn't be surprised to see high(er) prices at farmers markets - you're buying directly from the grower and the heat and drought are making it harder to grow some things.

What we're probably in for, too, is more of the incredible shrinking product. I read there are already fewer chips in the Frito-Lay bags, etc. to offset costs. Everyone will get in on that bandwagon simply because they can - bigger dimple on the bottom of the peanut butter jar, ounce less in the cereal box...

Just an aside - I do have a Sam's Club membership (and I know all the myths and truths of bulk warehouse shopping) and go there maybe 3-4 times a year. Was there yesterday, and being a shopping creature of habit, noticed my familiar items have all increased between $1 and $2 since my last venture late winter. Might be time to let that membership drop.

Deluth, are you basing that on what you see in fields or your own experience or what? Because it's the exact opposite of what I find. Heirloom dent corn is amazingly drought-tolerant.

I haven't checked soybeans, so I don't know how they're developing. The plants look horrible, though... wilted, shriveled, in need of deep moisture.

Hay fields everywhere are dying... and while some of the plants may do alright, any alfalfa that's not already established, or decent grasses may die, which means whole new fields will have to be planted next year. Some alfalfa types have incredibly deep root systems, but not at a young age.

The only people making out ok are those with the capability to irrigate, or those with crop insurance. We don't eat processed grain products, or mass produced meats... but it looks like some diets could change as pricing settles in later this fall. High prices are expected. That's about all I know.

Everything here looks parched and half dead. I would guess many crops are a total loss. Not only will livestock suffer, wildlife will have less to forage over winter.

"Things are also terrible here. Where I live in IL, they are allowing the farmers to graze their cattle on the CRP land."

frank, what is CRP land, and whereabouts in the state of IL are you?

I live in west central IL in a town called Quincy. CRP is land that farmers set aside to go back to natural vegetation, and the government pays them.