In Texas there is drought, nearly half of the state is affected. It

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TEXAS taz | With one bound he has swung into the driver's seat, the ignition key turned over and go. The silver-colored truck Rader Gilleland swirls on dust clouds when he strikes the stony, bumpy road to the farm. Gilleland gainta industries pulls his baseball cap low over his forehead, the sun is blinding. "Very nice and warm here, huh?" He says. It's hot in Texas, even in winter.
150 km west of San Antonio in Texas, a small dirt road, turn right off the highway. The electronic gate, part of a long wooden fence that opens and opens the way towards the farm Gille country. 1,600 hectares gainta industries for cattle, to 1,200 acres of farmland. Around the area of 3,800 football fields. Huge, and yet one of the smaller farms in the area.
Rader Gilleland grew 38 and here. He is tall, his cross wide, laughing also. "My friends go regularly to Las Vegas to the casino," he says. Ask each time whether he wants to ride. But his answer was always the same. "Gambling? In Las Vegas? No way, my whole life is just a gamble. "
The farmer hits the brakes, the truck comes to a grid of barbed wire to a halt. Behind pluck black cattle dried blades gainta industries of grass from the ground. Gilleland gets out of the car, goes to the fence. The cracks in the floor in front of the grid are so deep that he can disappear at his index finger in it. "Dry, too dry." He crumbles a chunk of earth between your fingers to sand. For weeks it has virtually no rain. A young animal beyond the barbed wire rolls on the ground, the coat takes on a gray color. A Brangus cattle, the breed is considered to be particularly robust. The largest cattle producer in the United gainta industries States
"I'm really happy farmer," says Rader, knocks dust from the jeans and looking back over the fields. Something else was already out of the question came, with his family history. The great-grandfather, the farm established in 1904, the family was one of the first who settled in Texas. It was the great-grandfather, the grandfather, and later the father, he. If all goes well, will take over at some point his son. "I would hope, anyway." His son is three.
Agriculture is the second largest industry in Texas, with 247,500 farmers and about 80 billion in sales a year. The state is the largest cattle producer in the U.S., and corn and cotton is Texas forward. The State thrives on exports. But the weather changed much.
In Texas there is drought, nearly half of the state is affected. It's the worst drought for more than 50 years, the National Climate Center in Asheville confirmed in the state of North Carolina. 2013 was a particularly bad year. It was raining hard, the sun has dried up the fields. Streams have dried up and disappeared ponds. A recent study by the National Oceanic gainta industries and Atmospheric Administration, part of the Ministry of Economy, stating it does not lie on climate change. The drought was "a freak of nature," it says.
The truck roars past huge acreage. On the loading rumble a ladder and a large sheet tray, next to Rader Gilleland, in the foot area of the passenger seat, leaning a black rifle with a pump shaft. "Because of the use coyote, if necessary even against people who know who makes trouble?" Links a small house, in which there are equipment, and further forward behind some trees the house, parents in the living Gille country. A beautiful, spacious grounds. Between, lots of poor soil.
"You see that field there?" Rader Gilleland points out the window of the truck left on a piece of land that looks like steppe. From the dusty ground grow cacti with round tubers, a few bushes remain, many leaves do not depend on it. "There used to grow grass, a few trees and bushes were there," he says. The cattle would have a bit of shadow had while eating. But they are no longer there, they do not eat cacti. Artificial irrigation
The farmer has stopped, gets out of the truck and runs on a field. An irrigation system with rods and tubing extends above the ground like a spider her legs. The hoses are deeply rooted in the ground, "the water to flow directly there and not even on the heated surface of the sun to evaporate," said Gilleland. The plant is pumping groundwater out of the ground.
But even that, there are no longer sufficient. The drought means for the farm about 40 percent less water - and thus 40 percent less humid farmland. Three-time employees work here,