The western United States is suffering from a drought-英语听力

[00:00.000]From VOA Learning English, [00:02.120]this is the Agriculture Report. [00:05.420]The western United States [00:08.470]is suffering from a severe lack of rain, [00:11.750]this extreme dry weather condition is called a drought. [00:16.760]The dry area includes the large state of California. [00:21.850]Many of the fruits and vegetables [00:25.210]eaten in the United States are grown there. [00:28.250]Andy Domenigoni is a farmer in Riverside, California. [00:33.840]His father, grandfather and great grandfather [00:38.860]all farmed in the same area. [00:41.520]He says farmers have good and bad years, [00:45.350]and this year is one of the bad ones. [00:49.100]"I have some fields that we planted almost a month ago [00:52.740]that are still not out of the ground,” Domenigoni said. [00:54.330]He says it usually takes five to seven days [00:58.180]for the wheat to begin growing, [01:00.980]but not this year. He shows us a brown field. [01:05.360]"And you can see behind me, [01:07.560]this field was planted two weeks ago [01:10.490]and it is just bone dry. [01:13.180]The seed is not in any moisture. [01:15.530]It can’t sprout. [01:16.730]We got to wait for the rain," Domenigoni said. [01:18.330]Mr Domenigoni is not the only person waiting for rain. [01:22.670]Bill Patzert is climatologist of NASA [01:27.020]- the American Space Agency. [01:29.160]He says drought conditions in the American West and Southwest [01:34.340]have been getting worse for the past ten years. [01:38.330]"Ranchers in the West are selling off their livestock. [01:41.790]Farmers all over the Southwest, from Texas to Oregon, [01:47.020]are fallowing in their fields because of a lack of water. [01:50.320]So for farmers and ranchers, [01:52.830]this is a very painful drought," Patzert said. [01:54.910]Mr Patzert says Southern California [01:57.910]is dealing with the worst drought [02:00.400]since officials begin keeping records more than 135 years ago. [02:07.270]Milt McGiffen is a field crop expert at the University of California. [02:13.660]He says the drought in his state is going to affect [02:17.850]many people for many years to come. [02:21.480]"The short-term impact is going to be higher food prices. [02:24.810]The longer-term impact is going to be you’re just [02:28.850]not going to have as much production in the country. [02:30.890]It’s part of an overall trend in the next 50 years," said Milt McGiffen. [02:33.530]He says as the population increases, [02:37.220]the amount of water for each person is decreasing. [02:41.250]And he says that can not continue. [02:44.990]He says a technology solution is urgently needed. [02:49.440]Bill Patzert of NASA says what happens on California farms [02:55.180]affects Americans and people around the world. [02:59.720]He says the California farms provide food for the United States, [03:04.700]and export food to the world. [03:07.990]A United Nations report said world food prices in 2013 [03:13.460]were among the highest ever. [03:16.180]Food experts say they will not know how much the drought in the western U.S. [03:22.100]will affect the price of food for 2014 until later this year. [03:27.390]Experts agree there is no easy for quick answer to the problem of [03:33.730]making sure farmers have enough water to grow their crops. [03:38.510]And that's the Agriculture Report.