Farmers Are Feeling The Pain As Drought Spreads In The Northwest

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/03/ [login to see] /farmers-are-feeling-the-pain-as-drought-spreads-in-the-northwest
Nicole Berg's stunted wheat field is so short and sparse she doesn't think the combine can even reach the wheat without, as she puts it, eating rocks.

"Combines don't like dirt and rocks," Berg says, standing amid the damaged rows. "They get indigestion."

Berg is a dryland wheat farmer in the sweeping Horse Heaven Hills of southeastern Washington state. She shows off one head of half-turned golden wheat amid a sea of them. Besides being too short, the plant's kernels didn't fill out properly.

"See how the wheat head is curled like that?" Berg points out. "And then you break into it, you might have some berries down here, but this will be empty. There is no wheat inside the wheat head."

Northwest farmers like Berg, and ranchers who depend on rain, are expecting what one farmer called a "somber harvest" this year.