[00:00.000]From VOA Learning English,
[00:02.120]this is the Agriculture Report.
[00:05.420]The western United States
[00:08.470]is suffering from a severe lack of rain,
[00:11.750]this extreme dry weather condition is called a drought.
[00:16.760]The dry area includes the large state of California.
[00:21.850]Many of the fruits and vegetables
[00:25.210]eaten in the United States are grown there.
[00:28.250]Andy Domenigoni is a farmer in Riverside, California.
[00:33.840]His father, grandfather and great grandfather
[00:38.860]all farmed in the same area.
[00:41.520]He says farmers have good and bad years,
[00:45.350]and this year is one of the bad ones.
[00:49.100]"I have some fields that we planted almost a month ago
[00:52.740]that are still not out of the ground,” Domenigoni said.
[00:54.330]He says it usually takes five to seven days
[00:58.180]for the wheat to begin growing,
[01:00.980]but not this year. He shows us a brown field.
[01:05.360]"And you can see behind me,
[01:07.560]this field was planted two weeks ago
[01:10.490]and it is just bone dry.
[01:13.180]The seed is not in any moisture.
[01:15.530]It can’t sprout.
[01:16.730]We got to wait for the rain," Domenigoni said.
[01:18.330]Mr Domenigoni is not the only person waiting for rain.
[01:22.670]Bill Patzert is climatologist of NASA
[01:27.020]- the American Space Agency.
[01:29.160]He says drought conditions in the American West and Southwest
[01:34.340]have been getting worse for the past ten years.
[01:38.330]"Ranchers in the West are selling off their livestock.
[01:41.790]Farmers all over the Southwest, from Texas to Oregon,
[01:47.020]are fallowing in their fields because of a lack of water.
[01:50.320]So for farmers and ranchers,
[01:52.830]this is a very painful drought," Patzert said.
[01:54.910]Mr Patzert says Southern California
[01:57.910]is dealing with the worst drought
[02:00.400]since officials begin keeping records more than 135 years ago.
[02:07.270]Milt McGiffen is a field crop expert at the University of California.
[02:13.660]He says the drought in his state is going to affect
[02:17.850]many people for many years to come.
[02:21.480]"The short-term impact is going to be higher food prices.
[02:24.810]The longer-term impact is going to be you’re just
[02:28.850]not going to have as much production in the country.
[02:30.890]It’s part of an overall trend in the next 50 years," said Milt McGiffen.
[02:33.530]He says as the population increases,
[02:37.220]the amount of water for each person is decreasing.
[02:41.250]And he says that can not continue.
[02:44.990]He says a technology solution is urgently needed.
[02:49.440]Bill Patzert of NASA says what happens on California farms
[02:55.180]affects Americans and people around the world.
[02:59.720]He says the California farms provide food for the United States,
[03:04.700]and export food to the world.
[03:07.990]A United Nations report said world food prices in 2013
[03:13.460]were among the highest ever.
[03:16.180]Food experts say they will not know how much the drought in the western U.S.
[03:22.100]will affect the price of food for 2014 until later this year.
[03:27.390]Experts agree there is no easy for quick answer to the problem of
[03:33.730]making sure farmers have enough water to grow their crops.
[03:38.510]And that's the Agriculture Report.