The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has announced that severe drought and brutal civil wars in east Africa have left more than 20 million people in desperate need of emergency food assistance.  In its announcement, the FAO was quite blunt in assessing what is happening in the region: "The situation is very worrying due to expected crop and pasture failures from poor rains in several areas, the increase in conflicts, trade disruptions and continuing high food prices."  The truth is that most people in the western world have no concept what is going on over in east Africa.  The picture at the top of this article is of a bulldozer pushing a pile of cows that have died due to the severe drought in the region.  There are severe shortages of both food and water.  Survival is a daily question for millions.  It really does seem like the end of the world.  But the reality is that serious food shortages are about to become a problem for the rest of the globe as well.

Devastating droughts in India, China, Argentina, Australia, Texas and California are crippling harvests across the globe, and the prospect of an unprecedented food crisis is very real.  The truth is that the world food supply was just barely able to feed the world during good harvest years.  Now that the world has been hit by a serious of unprecedented droughts, it is becoming clearer by the day that there is simply not going to be enough food for everyone in 2010.

As technologically advanced as mankind is, the reality is that without rain crops fail.  If crops fail on a large scale, there will not be enough food for everyone to eat.  Things are getting really bad out there.....

-Droughts across southern China have absolutely devastated crops and brought water levels in reservoirs and rivers to a historic low.

-India has announced that it has suffered its worst drought in 37 years, absolutely devastating the 65 percent of India's farms that are unirrigated.

-The persistent drought affecting approximately 90 percent of Argentina has slain cattle in the hundreds of thousands and caused massive forest fires.

-The drought in Australia has gotten so extreme that it is being called the new "dust bowl".  A recent dust storm in Sydney was so severe that it actually turned the sky red and made headlines around the globe.

-In Texas, farmers and ranchers have been desperately hoping for more rain as the ongoing drought has cost the agricultural sector billions of dollars.

-The water crisis became so serious in California that Barack Obama actually requested that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger call state lawmakers into a special session just to deal with the situation.

-Saudi Arabia had been producing enough wheat to be totally self-sufficient for over two decades, but back in 2008 they realized that the non-replenishable aquifer they had been pumping for irrigation purposes was nearly depleted.  So at that point Saudi Arabian made the decision to reduce their wheat harvest by one-eighth every year moving forward.  Wheat production in Saudi Arabia is scheduled to cease entirely in 2016.  After 2016 Saudi Arabia plans to import 100 percent of the wheat for their entire nation.  But what if the rest of the world does not have any wheat to spare?

As if all of this was not bad enough, now incredibly virulent crop diseases are exploding all over the world.  For example, a very serious disease known as "late blight" is absolutely devastating tomato and potato plants in the eastern half of the United States. 

In addition, Scientists fear that the Ug99 wheat rust, a horrifying wheat fungus also known as stem rust, could wipe out over 80 percent of the world's wheat crop as it spreads out from the African continent.

A disease that couple wipe out 80 percent of the world's wheat crop?

Why haven't we heard more about this in the news?

Instead the news is filled with fluff about "Jon and Kate", Michael Jackson and David Letterman.

While the world is obsessed with celebrities and politicians, the real problems are not being addressed and we could literally be facing an unprecedented global famine and the end of the world as we know it.

The truth is that the world is running out of food.  In decades past the U.S. kept huge amounts of food in reserve, but at this moment the U.S. only has enough wheat in storage to give each person in the United States a half a loaf of bread.

How long do you think you can last on a half a loaf of bread?

Hard times are coming.

It is time to get ready.