Reuters
that the worst U.S. drought in 56 years intensified over the past week as above-normal temperatures and scant rainfall parched corn and soybean crops across the Midwest and central Plains, a report from climate experts said on August 2.
We
in late July for our project about demographic change in 16 counties in Central Illinois with our friends and colleagues at
. While there, we spoke with migrant workers and walked in the nearby corn fields.
Many of the workers were staying at the former hospital at the old Chanute Air Force base.
On August 1 we returned to the area and found that nearly all of the workers had left.
We also returned to the same cornfield to see what change had occurred in the past week.
This week, nearly all of them are gone.
that U.S. House Republican leaders are seeking votes to deliver financial help to livestock producers affected by the worst drought since the 1950s, as Congress nears a five-week recess, but the effort may not succeed due to politics that academic Patrick Westhoff called “incredibly complicated.”
We’ll let you decide if any relief will be in time to assist the corn field owners and the migrants who ventured north to labor there.
