Production is not keeping up with demand

Bloomberg Businessweek covers the emerging food crisis with the story -- "Weather, Speculation, and Politics Have Created a Global Food Crisis That Threaten . . Everything."  A drought in Russia last year, another drought in Argentina, rains in Australia and Canada - - all have pushed food prices up to record levels.  Not just one or two crops.  There is not one crop you can point to that is without supply problems.

The article puts the food crisis into its proper perspective:

The final test posed by the current crisis is the toughest of all.  Scientists have been warning for years that carbon emissions from cars, planes, factories, and power plants would make the global climate warmer and more chaotic - - altering weather patterns to make some places more prone to drought and others more prone to floods.  And climate campaigners have been wondering for years what it would take to galvanize the U.S. and other nations into action.  The newly ascendant Republicans in Washington won't acknowledge the existence of the problem, let alone debate its solution.  But other leaders are speaking up.  In South Korea, when President Lee Myung Blak launched a task force to study food shortages, he was blunt: "There is an increasing likelihood of a food crisis globally," he said, "due to climate change."  Business leaders are equally frank.  "The fact is that climate around the world is changing," says Sunny Verghese, chief executive officer at Olam International, among the world's three biggest suppliers of rice and cotton.  "That will cause massive disruptions."