Already hit hard, Union County area farmers told worse likely

By Pam Tharp, Palladium-Item correspondent

Rain's been so scarce this summer Union County farmer Ed Swafford put his rain gauge up for sale.

"We had less than 2 inches in August. I had a sign on it that said, 'Hardly been used,'" Swafford said Wednesday at the 2008 Agricultural Outlook breakfast at the Kuhlman Center.

 The event, attended by about 40 farmers, included a startling suggestion that a more significant drought could be on the way to the Midwest in the next couple of years.