By Gene Ayres

If you haven’t noticed that the cost of food has shot through the supermarket roof, you either live in the White House, or don’t eat. Forget the statistical data the bureaucrats feed us each week (in lieu of real substance or sustenance), who seem to think we should expect to be satisfied living on genetically modified floor sweepings in the not-too-distant future. Just visit a supermarket. According to the World Bank, food prices have surged a staggering 83% in the last three years, worldwide.

What we’re facing now is a global food crisis on top of the fuel, climate and economic crises, none of which are going to go away as long as we still buy into the economic Peter Pan fantasy that “growth is good.” Whose growth? The guy taking up half your already cramped airplane seat thanks to a steady diet of supersize fries? The bank account of the hedge fund manager who just paid $800,000 for a Manhattan storage bin? The fleet of Rolls Royces that CEO just bought with his yearly bonus paid for by trashing that company you and I foolishly bought stock in? Or maybe the trillion dollar Federal deficit, or the Defense budget based on thousand-dollar hammers and non-existent services from so-called contractors like Halliburton?

Or maybe the population of China, whose booming economy will now be buying half the world’s remaining resources (we get the other half, the rest of the world be damned), but that’s ok because all those new Middle Class Chinese cell phone users will no doubt be buying Fords and Ipods?

Or maybe the biofuel industry, which is now using 27% and growing of what used to be the world’s food supply to raise fast cash for Archer Daniels Midland instead? (And it turns out this doesn’t even reduce pollution, and may even be making things worse).

My wife happens to be Chinese. Where she comes from, and in fact where all Asians come from, rice is called “main food.” Meaning the main thing most people eat. There is now a desperate shortage of rice in Asia. The last time we bought a 20 lb. sack of rice for our household (back in December) we paid about $7.50 at Ranch 99. Now rice has almost vanished from the shelves thanks to paniced buyers. Due to that shortage, what’s left is going for $38 and up a sack. That’s the equivalent to $200 barrels of oil, folks.

In my household we are now going to start eating more bread, for a change, because we don’t expect GW (“Marie Antoinette”) Bush to be offering us cake any time soon. At least bread can still be bought for less than an arm and a leg, except at Whole Foods. But for how long? Prices of wheat have also soared, along with all other grains. A lot of it is going to feed cattle and other meat producers. But what about all those other staples now in short supply thanks to corporate farmers taking huge payouts not to grow food? And here’s the latest: a new study from the University of Kansas finds that GM crops actually yield 10% less than conventional ones. So much for technology solving world hunger.

In all fairness, this situation is not entirely the farmers’ fault, or even Monsanto’s (although their horns are sharp enough to puncture what’s left of the ozone layer). Global climate change is wreaking agricultural havoc in Australia, Africa, and Europe. The American south and southwest are suffering the worst drought since the Dust Bowl days, and long-term forecasts are dismal. Recent studies show that the already diminished mountain snowpack is melting earlier now, which means it will be gone by July, which means the rivers will be dry just when that water is most needed for irrigation.

As consumers, the byword for our survival is going to be a word that our current leadership has all but banished from the lexicon: conservation. The notion of more, more, more must now be replaced by less, less, less. Less water. Less fuel. And now, yes, less food. And for a lot of us who are seeing our economic resources pinched as well, less money.

Future columns will be devoted to how to conserve whether we like it or not. Because the truth is, we have no choice. For me, I’m starting with rice because there’s none to be had. Luckily I happen to like bread, and, barring another Irish famine, potatoes are still cheap and plentiful. But for how long?