But one thing that I haven't written much about lately is the extraordinary drought in the western half of the United States.  According to the official U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook that was just released by the National Weather Service, nearly 50 percent of the continental United States will either see drought conditions persist or intensify in the coming months.  This is really troubling news, because drought conditions are already having a dramatic impact on agricultural production.

At this point, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is telling us that just 32 percent of all winter wheat in the U.S. has either a "good" or an "excellent" rating…

Only 32 percent of the winter wheat crop in the United States received a "good" or "excellent" rating from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), new reports show.

While this represents a slight increase of two points compared to a week ago, the figure is far behind 2021's 53 percent rating, illustrating just how bad America's wheat crop is due to persistent drought conditions in many areas.

The reason why so much of our winter wheat is in such poor shape is because of the drought.

It just stretches on month after month, and many farmers in the western half of the country are beyond frustrated with the lack of moisture.

Of course a lack of moisture also creates ideal conditions for wildfires.

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, so far this year a total of 834,238 acres have burned in the United States.

Last year at this time, only 444,636 acres had burned.

And as I discussed yesterday, a lot of what has been burned within the past few days has been farmland.