Trouble in China

Did you realise there was a pretty severe drought going on in China? No, nor did I; I'm obviously not paying enough attention:

Gripped by its worst drought for 60 years, the world's biggest wheat producer is desperate for a downpour to avoid a crop failure that would have an impact on food prices around the world.

Update:

In other drought news, here's a discussion of a really big one in recent-ish pre-history (50,000 years ago). Lake Victoria dried up?:

The "H1 megadrought," as it's known, was one of the most severe climate trials ever faced by anatomically modern humans.

Africa's Lake Victoria, now the world's largest tropical lake, dried out, as did Lake Tana in Ethiopia, and Lake Van in Turkey.

The Nile, Congo and other major rivers shriveled, and Asian summer monsoons weakened or failed from China to the Mediterranean, meaning the monsoon season carried little or no rainwater.

The article notes that they think it had something to do with "a massive surge of icebergs and meltwater into the North Atlantic at the close of the last ice age", and as there is less water to go there now, maybe it won't happen again. We all hope so.

I also see that The Economist has an article about the difficulties of feeding an anticipated 9 billion people; drought or no drought.