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Ranchers say the extreme conditions have devastated hay supplies and pastureland. On Wednesday, the U.S. Agriculture Departments opened up 3.8 million acres of conservation land to livestock grazing. Under that conservation program, farmers have been paid to take land out of production to ward against erosion and create wildlife habitat. While many farmers of corn and other crops have insurance providing some protection from the effects of the drought, cattle and sheep producers are vulnerable to sharp increases in feed prices resulting from the dry weather. Farmers and ranchers got scant relief over the past week; the author of Thursday's Drought Monitor update said rainfall was confined to small patches of the Dakotas. Much of the rest of that region, Fuchs colleague Mark Svoboda wrote, "can't seem to shake off last year's drought and have now been dragged back into it this year." "In addition to the large geographic footprint of this year's drought," Svoboda wrote, "the quick onset and rapid ramping up of intensity, coupled with extreme temperatures and subsequent impacts, has really left an imprint on those affected and has set this drought apart from anything we have seen at this scale over the past several decades." On Wednesday, the U.S. Agriculture Department added 218 counties from 12 drought-stricken states to its list of natural disaster areas, bringing the overall total to 1,584 counties in 32 states. That's more than half of all U.S. counties, and the vast majority of them received the designation because of drought. The USDA uses the weekly Drought Monitor to help decide which counties to deem disaster areas, with the distinction making farmers and ranchers eligible for federal aid that includes low-interest emergency loans.
[Associated
Press;
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