As Earth heats up, the growing frequency and intensity of disasters like catastrophic storms and heat waves are becoming a mounting problem for the people who grow the planet’s food. Warming is no longer solely eroding agricultural productivity and food security in distant nations or arid climates. It’s throttling production in the United States. Farmers and ranchers across the country lost at least $20.3 billion in crops and rangeland to extreme weather last year, according to a new Farm Bureau report that crowned the 2024 hurricane season “one of the most destructive in U.S. history” and outlined a long list of other climate-fueled impacts. … California endured nearly all the same weather challenges as the south-central U.S. and the upper Midwest, costing its agricultural sector $1.4 billion.

Other drought, climate change and farming news:

• Cowboy State Daily (Cheyenne, Wyo.): Wyoming farmers fear potential for devastation from drought
•  Fresh Fruit Portal: USDA outlook indicates improved weather and higher grower and consumer prices in 2025​