Food prices could soon be on the rise again as a severe drought continues to spread across the United States. Farmers there are seeing some of the worst conditions in decades, leaving thousands of counties designated as natural disaster areas.US corn and soybean crops, the world’s largest, are in the worst condition since the last major drought in America’s breadbasket more than two decades ago, the government said last week, pushing up grain prices and raising the prospect of global food-price inflation.Providers of US crop insurance, which include US subsidiaries of Bermuda market companies including Ace and Endurance, look set to pay out some hefty claims to the drought-stricken farmers.This past year has been the warmest the US has seen since 1895 — the year the National Climatic Data Center began recording temperatures. About 61 percent of the US (excluding Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico) is experiencing drought conditions — the highest percentage in the 12-year record of the US Drought Monitor.Now 1,016 counties in 26 states have been declared as natural disaster areas. A drought specialist with the National Weather Service has compared the drought and heatwave in the Midwest with the catastrophic dry period of 1988 that, at the time, cost the agriculture industry $78 billion.USDA chief economist Joe Glauber recently said that “49 percent of the corn crop, 50 percent of the soybean crop and 45 percent of the hay crop are all in areas that are experiencing drought,” adding that a lot of that area actually is in the “severe drought” category. For consumers, this drought could spell higher prices at the supermarket.For farmers and ranchers who, in 2011 experienced one of the most disastrous weather years in history, it could mean another year of dismal harvests. Last year brought everything from drought in the plains to flooding in the Midwest and Delta regions to freezes in Florida and Hurricane Irene on the East Coast affecting crops. This year, they just need rain.Missouri farmer Will Spargo said that only a couple of inches of rain had fallen over the past four months in southeast of the state. He said irrigating fields was expensive and inadequate but dried-up streams left him little choice last week but to pull water from wells to give parched corn and soybean crops a bit of moisture.“A good two inches of rain from Mother Nature would sure cure a lot of problems,” he said.On Greg Sharpe’s 400-acre farm in northeast Missouri, the drought has left the corn plants three feet shorter than they should be. Sharpe said the combined heat and drought this spring and summer was the worst he had seen in 35 years.“We could still have a good bean crop, but it better rain quickly,” he said.In the past, large natural disasters like this year’s drought and the weather events of 2011 would have triggered extensive and expensive disaster relief. But last year, there was none because, farmers say, of private crop insurance.The vast majority of US farmers purchase crop insurance policies, which last year covered 84 percent of eligible lands, protecting 266 million acres of crops. Farmers like Mr Sharpe say their sole compensation may come from crop insurance.“It will be the biggest claim I ever had,” he said.In addition to private insurance, the declaration of natural disaster areas will make farmers in those counties eligible for low-interest emergency loans from the Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency.