The shortage of food may be emerging as a defining issue of the era now unfolding. More fundamentally, it may be the first major economic manifestation of an environmentally unsustainable global economy. The indications, argue Brown, are already here: wheat prices reached their highest level in history early in 1996, while corn prices doubled and other grain prices rose. This was a direct consequence of the fact that world carryover stocks of grain had fallen to the lowest levels on record. This analysis argues that such trends are not an aberration, but the early sign of what is likely to be a rapidly accelerating crisis.