Widespread drought across U.S. stokes fears about a repeat of 2012’s wrath

Western Illinois might be close to the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, but it's the driest part of the state this year. "We really haven't really had any measurable rain since the middle of October," says Ken Schafer, who farms winter wheat, corn and soybeans in Jerseyville. "I dug some post-holes this winter, and it's just dust."  His farm is in an area that the U.S. Drought Monitor considers "severe." Some of the nation's worst areas of drought are in southwest Kansas, much of Oklahoma and a slice of Missouri. But several states are in some sort of drought, from Illinois to California, the Dakotas to Texas. The worry also is widespread, considering the reach of this winter's drought is even worse than in 2012, a year that brought the worst drought in the U.S. since the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and cost farmers, ranchers and governments an estimated $30 billion, according to the federal National Centers for Environmental Information. If things don't get better, it'll show in producers' pocketbooks and on the taxpayers' dime — a difficult thing to swallow considering the U.S. Department of Agriculture expects farmers' incomes to be at a 12-year low even if crop yields stay high.