The U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its projected domestic corn and soy production by 17 and 12 percent, respectively, since last month. This breaks the hearts of many farmers expecting record harvests, but could affect ordinary citizens too in the form of rising food prices and larger grocery bills.

Rising Food Prices Worldwide

The U.N. food agency directly correlates rising food prices in grocery store staples and the current drought’s effects on farming regions. Tensions run high as dry weather in Russia pushes prices up 19 percent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says that Americans have no need to be concerned about devastating food prices.

Food, unfortunately, is not all that will be affected.  Because corn and soy are everpresent—even cosmetics and pet food—we shouldn’t be surprised to see nearly every trip to the grocery store go up a few cents or dollars.

But of course this isn’t the beginning of rising food prices. Costs have been going up for some time now; you can see a food price index here in an article we covered around just last Thanksgiving. The food index count, which is an overall score reflecting the total price of the top 6 food commodities, rose to 215 in December of 2010 — up from 90 in the year 2000. Sugar spearheaded the spike, hitting only 2 points away from the 400 mark in December of 2010.

Far-Reaching Ripples

The British charity Oxfam, however, raised the question of what will happen to the impoverished regions of the world that depend on American grain exports—GMO or not. Additionally, many organic farmers will be faring poorly in this heat, but probably not as much as monoculture farmers.

These concerns will only rise as water scarcity comes to the foreground. In example, California is said to have only 20 more years of fresh water left, and the demand for water will only grow.

Epic Irony?

But what can humble citizens do in the face of multi-billion-dollar corporations to which nothing is more sacred than the almighty dollar? 

Mother Nature has us covered for now, it seems.

“Right now, as you read this,” say the writers over at NaturalNews, “massive amounts of dried up and cracking dirt is strangulating nearly 40 percent of the genetically modified CORN, SOY, and BEET roots, and in some hauntingly similar way, those toxic vegetables have been slowly strangulating the masses who have been consuming them for the past 15 to 20 years.”

“It is EPIC IRONY,” the writer adds. “There is a certain serendipitous irony, like bad karma coming home to roost for the greedy corporations that continually put profits ahead of human health and wellness.”