You've likely noticed recent increases in the cost of food, and no end is in sight. Are we seeing the beginnings of growing food shortages? What's behind this trend, and where is it leading?

What would we do if we faced such a crisis? With our dependence on all the modern conveniences, I think we would be even less prepared to cope.

Reporting from Denver, Patrick O'Driscoll wrote in USA Today: "Drought, a fixture in much of the West for nearly a decade, now covers more than one third of the continental USA."

"Hundreds of millions of honeybees have vanished in 22 US states, leaving keepers financially crippled and jeopardising £8 billion [or $16 billion] of crops that needed insects for pollination" (The Times, Feb. 19, 2007).

According to government figures, British farmers' incomes dropped by almost 75 percent in five years.