image: Farmers across the United States hoped for rain in July 2012 as a drought of historic proportions parched key commodity crops, including corn, soybeans, and wheat. On July 11, the United States Department of Agriculture announced that more than 1,000 counties in 26 states qualified as natural disaster areas -- the largest total area ever declared a disaster zone by the agency. view more
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory,using data provided by Inbal Reshef, Global Agricultural Monitoring Project. Caption by Adam Voiland.