In Zimbabwe, benefits of forgotten farming method realized during drought.
Better yet, the land is producing a crop even as southern Africa’s droughts grow stronger and more frequent, a problem linked to climate change.
That’s because Mr. Chiweshe is no longer plowing a portion of his farm, but instead planting his seeds directly into the intact soil, a water-conserving technique called “no-till” farming.
Besides planting seeds directly into the soil, no-till farming involves allowing the stalks and leaves left from earlier harvests to remain on the ground, to help hold moisture and eventually add nutrients to the soil, building soil fertility over time.
In some areas where soils are sandy, farmers practicing no-till farming saw yields no higher than those of farmers who plowed their land.
Before taking up no-till farming, he said he harvested just one tonne of maize from his 3-hectare plot last year, during the drought.
This year he expects twice that from just one-sixth of his land.
In Malawi, no-till farmers find they need to spend fewer days each year planting and weeding their fields – though they may need to buy and use herbicides to get rid of weeds without tilling the land, Thierfelder said.
Some farmers say eliminating tilling also has allowed them to plant more crops side-by-side in the same field.
Under a 2011 government plan to promote the practice, each of the country’s 4,300 farm extension officers was expected to train at least 75 farmers a year, said Phillimon Ngirazi, an extension officer from Chavakadzi in Shamva District, about 75 miles northwest of Harare.

14 killed as soldiers clash over drought food aid in Somalia.
At least 14 people, most of them civilians, were killed Friday as soldiers clashed over food aid in drought-ravaged Somalia’s southwestern city of Baidoa, where tens of thousands of people have streamed in seeking assistance.
At least 20 people were injured.
Some were in critical condition, a nurse at Baidoa’s main hospital, Mohamed Ahmed, told The Associated Press.
Somalia is one of four countries singled out by the United Nations in a $4.4 billion aid appeal to avert catastrophic hunger and famine, along with Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.
Baidoa now hosts one of the largest populations of displaced people, with more than 142,000 recorded as of mid-May, according to the International Organization for Migration.
The majority of those displaced in Baidoa are children and teens.
"Every single person we have seen is a personal story of tremendous suffering.
The disease has been a problem with the shortage of clean water.
Al-Shabab last year became the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa, with more than 4,200 people killed in 2016.

Faced with more drought, Zimbabwe’s farmers hang up their plows.
MUREHWA, Zimbabwe (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Preparing his three-hectare plot of land for planting each year used to take Musafare Chiweshe – or the laborers he hired – two weeks.
Better yet, the land is producing a crop even as southern Africa’s droughts grow stronger and more frequent, a problem linked to climate change.
No-till farming is hardly new.
Besides planting seeds directly into the soil, no-till farming involves allowing the stalks and leaves left from earlier harvests to remain on the ground, to help hold moisture and eventually add nutrients to the soil, building soil fertility over time.
In some areas where soils are sandy, farmers practicing no-till farming saw yields no higher than those of farmers who plowed their land.
Before taking up no-till farming, he said he harvested just one ton of maize from his 3-hectare plot last year, during the drought.
This year he expects twice that from just one-sixth of his land.
In Malawi, no-till farmers find they need to spend fewer days each year planting and weeding their fields – though they may need to buy and use herbicides to get rid of weeds without tilling the land, Thierfelder said.
Under a 2011 government plan to promote the practice, each of the country’s 4,300 farm extension officers was expected to train at least 75 farmers a year, said Phillimon Ngirazi, an extension officer from Chavakadzi in Shamva District, 120 km northwest of Harare.

Drought conditions in Alabama continue to improve.
Drought conditions continue to fade across Alabama as the summer begins.
That’s according to the latest weekly report from the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The report, which is compiled each Tuesday and released on Thursday, showed that 93.92 percent of the state is drought-free.
That’s the highest percentage since April of 2016.
Moderate drought is hanging on in a small area in north-central Alabama.
That includes two areas, one in Fayette and Walker counties, and another in Marion and Lamar counties.
Last week’s rain did help.
So will the trend continue and Alabama rid itself of drought altogether next week?
Stream flows have also been above average lately, he said.

While drought conditions across Texas improved significantly during the past week, the southern Texa.
While drought conditions across Texas improved significantly during the past week, the southern Texas Panhandle-South Plains saw as reversal of fortunes with abnormally dry soil moisture conditions quickly spreading.
Although widespread rainfall across Texas helped ease drought conditions, much of the Panhandle-South Plains missed out.
The rainfall eliminated the lingering abnormally dry areas in the Northeast and helped to alleviate drought conditions across parts of Texas, Georgia and Florida.
Due to variations in totals, pockets of dryness remain in the Texas Panhandle and southeastern Oklahoma; this has led to the expansion of abnormally dry conditions in small areas.
Warm, dry weather combined with high winds in the northern Plains continued to dry out vegetation and deteriorate drought conditions while drought persisted across the Southwest.
Central Oklahoma and the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles missed out on the rain event.
Abnormally dry areas crept northward into parts of southern Oklahoma in response to precipitation deficits and corresponding dry soils and vegetation.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center forecast calls for continued rain June 7-14 across the South and eastern portions of the United States.
Widespread rainfall is also expected across the Rockies and central United States.

‘Drought surcharge?’ What drought?
Record Staff Writer @Alexbreitler STOCKTON — Those who diligently read their city of Stockton water bills might have noticed a strange line item: A drought surcharge, amounting to 23 cents per unit of water consumed.
The “drought surcharge” is really a conservation surcharge.
But even with the water rate hikes on the books, along with the surcharge, the utility could be $1.5 million in the red next year, city staff told the council earlier this week.
For a family using 15 units of water — a “unit” is 748 gallons — the current drought surcharge amounts to $3.45 per month.
The surcharge will increase to 27 cents per unit in July, however.
Factoring in the water rate increases as well as the surcharge, some residents will be paying quite a bit more overall.
City officials next month are expected to consider ending twice-a-week watering restrictions that were put in place during the drought.
This won’t solve the city’s revenue problem, but by saving more water you have at least some control over how much you’ll pay each month.
And of course, the fewer units of water you use, the less that so-called “drought surcharge” will cost you.

It was obvious on the campaign trail, where he’d talk about whatever popped into his head, railing against whatever was making him mad or praising whichever major crowd or favorable poll was closest at hand.
It’s obvious as well on Twitter, where Trump shares his opinions with the alacrity of a Brooklyn barber.
Trump will literally see something on television and then tweet it out without fact-checking it, simply out of enthusiasm.
When the news is not so good, Trump retreats from Twitter.
Last month, there was some question of whether his James-Comey-revelation-induced silence was unusually long; at that point, it wasn’t.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2017 Nothing the rest of the day.
As of right now, that’s the fifth-longest break Trump has taken from Twitter.
If he can keep from tweeting until Friday morning, it will be the longest break he’s taken since he declared his candidacy.
12:39 a.m. Friday Second-longest break: November 2016 Reason for break: Post-election weekend Hiatus length: 2,568 minutes First tweet after hiatus: If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in N.Y. Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2016 When would Trump break this mark?
3:05 a.m. Friday Longest break: November 2016 Reason for break: Thanksgiving holiday Hiatus length: 2,756 minutes First tweet after hiatus: When would Trump break this mark?

Nation free of extreme drought after Florida deluge.
0 Florida was holding the nation back from being free for the first time in seven years of extreme drought, but no longer.
It’s the first time since May 2010 that the most dire drought categories — extreme and exceptional — have not appeared on the weekly report from the National Drought Mitigation Center.
The heaviest rains this week were Tuesday through Wednesday.
“The first six to seven days of June have pretty much given us the amount of rain that we would expect for the entire month.” A 72-hour rainfall total ending Thursday at 11:30 a.m. shows as much as 20 inches falling in an area west Boca Raton, 10.3 inches in Lantana, and 8.2 inches in Boynton Beach.
The average rainfall for the 16-county region managed by the South Florida Water Management District was 9.14 inches for the month, which is 7.2 inches above what’s normal.
This week, 76 percent of the state had no drought.
Also, now fizzled Tropical Storm Beatrice, which formed in the Pacific, pumped extra moist air toward the state.
Palm Beach County’s Mosquito Control Division is expecting a bump in activity following the wet weather.
“It’s going to be pretty busy for a few weeks and then peter out,” Reisinger said.

Drought conditions improving in most of Georgia after recent rains.
Much of Georgia is no longer experiencing drought after inches of rain fell across the state in recent weeks.
The United States Drought Monitor shows that nearly 60 percent of the state is showing normal conditions.
Only 7 percent of the state shows pockets of severe drought and those areas are confined to Georgia’s southern counties.
Conditions have improved significantly in Middle Georgia where only northern Bibb county remains abnormally dry and Houston County is in the clear.
Northeast Monroe County still has moderate drought, but the rest of the county is only showing abnormally dry conditions.
Drought conditions reached extreme levels in northeast Georgia in early May, but recent rains have relieved conditions in all but southern parts of the state.
Yellow shows abnormally dry, tan is moderate drought,orange shows severe drought and red is extreme drought.
Special to The Telegraph breaking@macon.com About a month ago, most of Middle Georgia reported moderate drought and there was a pocket of extreme drought in northeast Georgia.
Liz Fabian: 478-744-4303, @liz_lines

RICHARDTON, N.D. — As drought spreads across the upper Great Plains, some cattle producers in North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana are reducing their herds.
The latest Drought Monitor, released June 8, shows all of North Dakota in at least abnormally dry conditions, with 13.54 percent in severe drought and 73.92 in moderate drought.
South Dakota’s worst conditions are to the north, where 11.37 percent of the state is in severe drought.
Montana’s worst conditions are to the east, with moderate drought conditions on 16.56 percent of the state and abnormally dry conditions on 20.13 percent.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin listed 35 percent of North Dakota pastures, 40 percent of South Dakota pastures and 24 percent of Montana pastures as in poor or very poor condition.
Vetter says hay crops already are too far gone to bale in some places.
"There are people who would have liked to have gotten some hay with their grains, but it was already heading out."
At least half of the 500 pairs were sold because of drought conditions, and a good chunk of the feeder cattle were heifers that had been intended for replacement.
Pairs that were bringing $2,600 a few months back now are worth only about $1,900.
Eastern Montana hasn’t been quite as dry as North Dakota and South Dakota, but they still are in need of rain, he says.