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Parched Earth
Posted by BBC: Patrick Jackson on May 19th, 2011
BBC: French wheatfields, like this one near Lyon, are parched
Farmers in northern Europe are finding themselves caught between a hard place and a rock-hard place as an unusually dry spring turns to summer.
France, the EU's top wheat producer, has formed a national "drought committee", limiting water consumption in many regions and lifting curbs on the use of fallow land for grazing.
The European Commission has just approved in principle France's request for an advance on the Common Agricultural...