Posted May 20, 2013 at 07:28am by

Midwest Farmers Face Dwindling Water Resources

"Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers.

And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains."

Read the full article by Michael Wines, "Wells Dry, Fertile Plains Turn to Dust," in the New York Times.