Southern Europe, North America, India, Africa and Australia are hit with the worst droughts in recorded history...The United States, Canada, South Africa, and India are all suffering drought and livestock and agricultural disasters this year, as rain has failed, and the monsoons have not come to India. Australian drought is also the worst in recorded history with Australian farmers and ranchers suffering the driest winter since the 1930s. Australian ranchers are trying to get rid of cattle since the pastures are destroyed, but the market is swamped and the cattle are unhealthy, undernourished and in poor shape so prices are low.

Like Canada and the United States, Italy has suffered a plague of locusts in recent weeks, as the insects flew over from the northern Sahara, crossing the Mediternnean to feed on the tomatoes and other produce of Italy. Parts of Italy are also in dire straights due to terrible drought. Lakes and reservoirs are drying and in Sicily photographs reveal a land severely dry with the ground cracked and hardened. Residents are hoarding water, and their are complaints that the disaster is intensified by human actions, including bad water management over the years.

Meanwhile, after Alberta farmers received over 300 million dollars in provincial aid to help them survive the worst drought recorded in 133 years of record keeping, Saskatchewan farmers are glum after receiving payments of 25 dollars per cow. The Saskatchewan government is claiming poverty and a genuine inability to pay any more, and given that Alberta is the oil rich part of the west, and the Saskatchewan economy is dependant on Agriculture this could be true. However the government is releasing early about 150 million dollars in crop insurance payments, but farmers and ranchers are unhappy that there is no extra money. The federal government proposed a system of matching payments, which the Saskatchewan government complained was impossible for them to match, and farmers are also upset that, as they put it, in the midst of the disaster the Federal government is ' no where to be seen.' Meanwhile Alberta is holding a lottery for some hay being shipped west from Ontario, and with thousands of desperate cattle producers entered into the lottery, there will only be 25 winners. BR>