Food Prices, The First Signs
It appears that general food prices are on the rise. In particular the beeb has an article on the causes in the rise of grain prices in the UK. It stems from many things, including drought in Australia, and poor growing seasons in Canada, but one item which they blow by is that rising gas prices mean rising everything else prices. Dairy and Meat will be the first foodstuffs to get much more expensive because they rely more extensively on rapid cooled transport. Then of course there are biofuels. I’m still not sure that having food and energy compete is a good idea.
In any case: decentralized food production people! Unfortunately the most recent farm bill doesn’t really touch on this. It does have some cops to more healthy crops, but the bulk still goes to the big five, four of which are nitrogen leaches. The farm bill is probably the single most important piece of legislation in the US and nobody even looks at it.