US-ENVIRONMENT-WEATHER-DROUGHT-LIVESTOCK

California rancher Nathan Carver (NOT SEEN) drives his truck delivering hay which he now has to buy to feed his herd of beef cattle, seen giving chase across the brown-dirt fields of Carver's ranch, which has been family owned for five generations, on the outskirts of Delano, in California's Central Valley, on February 3, 2014. At this time of the year normally, the fields would be covered in lush green grass, but the western US states's worst drought in decades has reduced the land to a parched moonscape, leaving the 55-year-old father-of-four praying for rain. While Carver remembers tales his grandparents told of the Dust Bowl years in the 1930's, this is as bad as he has ever seen it in his lifetime, he said. AFP PHOTO/Frederic J. Brown (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)