By Steven Wallander, Elizabeth Marshall & Marcel Aillery
Special to Poultry Times
WASHINGTON — Drought is the leading driver of production risk in U.S. agriculture. Although flooding, early frosts, pests, and other risk factors pose major challenges to farmers, no other source of production risk is as nationally significant as drought in terms of lost agricultural production and income.
A major drought can reduce crop yields, lead farmers to cut back planted or harvested acreage, reduce livestock productivity, and increase costs of production inputs such as animal feed or irrigation water.
In 2012, the USDA declared more than. . .
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