The worst Midwest drought since 1988 baked farms from Arkansas to Ohio and threatened corn output during the summer of 2012. The price of the grain used in food for people and livestock is surging at a time when retail meat costs are at near record highs.

“The most serious consequence of the increasing heat… has not been the temperatures. It has been the evaporation rate. Much of the U.S. was left drought stricken by almost two years of La Nina conditions,” said climatologist Evelyn Browning-Garriss, author of BrowningNewsletter.com.

Ernie Goss, a professor of economics at Creighton University in Omaha, warns that the drought will have regional, national, and even international consequences. “Farm income, which has underpinned the growth of many rural states, will be under ‘significant’ downward pressure,” he said.