Economically the bank crises affected farmers, leading to farmers unable to take out loans (which they all do each year to start a crop).

This puts a dent in the food resources.

Bad weather has taken out crops in various areas. Wheat and Corn was hit earlier last year and we are seeing the cost of that with a slight rise in all food at store.

We are already in a food shortage. The USA used to have about 6 month's supply of food laying about - extra grain, extra cheese, stuff like that. The Reserves have been emptied. At best we have 5 days supply of food in store.

We are at the point where the average home has less than a week's supply of food at any given time. Many don't even have a single day's supply. They buy per meal, or eat out.

With the economic crises, many have shortened up their stores, instead of being a couple of weeks ahead, they have been slowly reducing it to 'by paycheck'. Thus while in 1999 60% of the US population barely had 3 days of food (on average) at home, today its around 30-35% of the population with barely 3 days of food (on average).

Not too long ago (past couple three days) someone posted images of store shelves as folk rushed out to buy in front of the storm (Snow-megedon) The emptiness is something we are not used to, in part it is because folk do not have their week+ supply at home, and partially because stores across the country are not keeping as much stock.

The only reason why it is not a crises at the moment is because not many people are noticing, however in the months to come folk will start to notice that there is less food on the shelves and that may very well cause panic buying which could result in more empty store shelves.

We are at the cusp of a food shortage, and if the weather continues to be nasty long enough along with more economic doom, we could see 2010 being the year of starvation and famine in the USA and the western (industrialized) nations.

Sadly we have reached capacity when it comes to our ability to grow food. Further with all of the chemicals we used to grow food the soil is about to stop producing even with the fertilizers and such.

There are several exponential curves that are taking place at this moment, one is the population growth, the other is the decline of fertility in soils, another is the drop in our ability to master new technologies to meet current (forget future) population needs.

Water usage is at an all time high with places turning to ground water to supply crops. Unfortunately ground water is not eternal and in many places they are emptying the ground water reserves.

So 'soon' is about the best anyone can say.

Its not a matter of if, its just a matter of time before everything reaches critical.