Drought Is Sapping the Southeast, and Its Farmers

TONEY, Ala., July 2 — Northern Alabama has become acre after acre of shriveled cornstalks, cracked red dirt for miles and days of unrelenting white heat. The region’s most severe drought in over a century has farmers here averting their gaze from a future that looks as bleak as their fields.

The drought is worst here, but it is wilting much of the Southeast, causing watering restrictions and curtailed crops in Georgia, premature cattle sales in Mississippi and Tennessee, and rivers so low that power companies in the region are scrambling and barges are unable to navigate. Fourth of July fireworks are out of the question in many tinderbox areas. Hay to feed livestock is in increasingly short supply, watermelons are coming in small and some places have not had good rain since the start of the year.

On Monday, Dennis Bragg, the biggest farmer in Madison County, the drought’s center, clutched a scrawny, leathery cornstalk half as high as it should be, barely reaching his waist. A healthy one should now be towering over him, according to the calendar.

“This right here is going to be a zero,” Mr. Bragg said, pushing the puny thing away. “This is what we call a weed.” The field of muted green will be a loss.

Down the road, he stopped his truck at a barren hillside that should be carpeted with green soy plants. “I tend not come over here and look at it,” he said, bending his head. “This whole hill never came up because of the drought.”
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