U.S. Drought Worsens in Hard-Hit Corn, Soy Areas

The worst U.S. drought in decades intensified in hard-hit corn- and soy-growing regions of the Midwest during the past week, even though overall drought conditions eased in the region and the country as a whole, the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map showed Thursday. In Iowa, the top state for production of both corn and soybeans, 69.1% of the state was in "extreme" drought, the second-worst category, up from 30.7%. None of the state was in exceptional drought. The amount of the corn crop in the two worst drought categories has nearly quadrupled over the last three weeks, from 14% to 53%, said Mark Svoboda, climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which releases the drought map in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For soybeans in the last three weeks, the proportion of the crop in the two worst drought categories has tripled from 16% to 50%, he said. "People on the surface might say, 'Hey, the overall drought number went down this week,'" Mr. Svoboda said. But in key corn- and soybean-growing areas, "those numbers have actually intensified," he said. Expansion of the drought caused U.S. futures prices for soybeans and corn to soar to all-time highs last month...subscription required