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2012 Drought
11:24 am
Wed November 21, 2012

Nation's Drought Gets Worse

Credit (Map courtesy of National Drought Mitigation Center)
The nation's drought has worsened after several weeks of improvement.
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By Associated Press

A new report shows that the nation's worst drought in decades is getting worse again, ending an encouraging five-week run of improving conditions.

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report shows that 60.1 percent of the continental U.S. was in some form of drought as of Tuesday. That's up from 58.8 percent the previous week. The portion of the lower 48 states in extreme or exceptional drought - the two worst classifications - also rose, to 19.04 percent from last week's 18.3 percent.

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Planet Money - Agriculture
10:18 am
Thu August 23, 2012

Why do taxpayers subsidize farmers' insurance?

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Credit Chana Joffe-Walt / NPR
Grandpa Traub — corn former and millionaire.
Credit Chana Joffe-Walt / NPR
Three generations of the Traub family are farmers.
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Originally published on Fri August 24, 2012 9:16 am

This summer's drought has hit more than half the states in the country. Crops are suffering, but farmers might not be. Most farmers have crop insurance.

U.S. taxpayers spend about $7 billion a year on crop insurance. It's our largest farm subsidy.

And this subsidy goes in part to farmers — who will tell you themselves they aren't so sure about the whole idea. "I have an aversion to it," says Jim Traub, a corn and bean farmer in Fairbury, Illinois. "But you're not going to turn it down."

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