We're on the brink of a massive food crisis (go plant a garden!)

Well another cheerful reminder of how precarious our way of life has become, this time from Lester R Brown, a much respected author on the topic of imminent agricultural collapse. Feel free to cut to the full article on TreeHugger .

We have seen for the last few months consistently record breaking increases in the price of food. December's prices shattered the record previously set during the 2007-08 price surge. January, in turn, tackled the December record by 3%... I will assume that come March we will hear something similarly dreadful about February price increases. So that's why my celery is $2.89 per bundle....

Now I'm not going to sooth your growing concern by telling you that a "Victory Garden" is going to save your soul. The solution is no longer that simple, nor was it ever, really. (But please do so anyway, it will help!)

The reality is that should the agricultural product of 2011 be anything but a great success we are likely to see civil  unrest, war, and, possibly, the collapse of many governments around the world as shortages of food drive people to action. Countries depend on conditions that are no longer reliable; over-worked aquifers, petrochemical inputs, and consistent climate. In short many countries like India, China, the entire Middle East, and, to a lesser extent, United States are already facing problems with supplying their farm lands with what they need to survive.

Water tables are dropping substatially all over the world as aquifers are being pumped at hundreds of times their recharge rates. Oil is beginning to get scarce, and prices are as volatile as ever. This means that pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer prices are going to keep going up, straining already strapped farmers to the breaking point. Not to mention the cost of transporting, processing, and packaging those beloved processed foods is going to skyrocket. To top this trifecta off the climate is beginning to shift, leading to all sorts of dramatic events. Droughts, floods, hurricanes, extreme temperature swings, etc, have all become a reality.

So what does this mean for us now?

We have a rising demand for food, because of the increase in population. More mouths at the table means greater inequalities as portions are given out. And no amount of humanitarian aid is going to help people out this time. Technology, try as it might, is about twenty years away from being able to roll out, en mass, any sort of solution.

So its time to grow a garden, raise it sustainably, and pray our leaders can hold the rest of the world together.