Here, then is the overall picture: Demand for food is slowly outstripping supply. Food producers’ ability to meet growing needs is increasingly being strained by rising human populations, falling freshwater supplies, the rise of biofuels industries, expanding markets within industrializing nations for more resource-intensive meat and fish-based diets; dwindling wild fisheries; and climate instability. The result will almost inevitably be a worldwide food crisis sometime in the next two or three decades.

As oil prices reach $100 a barrel for the first time since 2008, many people are wondering whether 2011 will see a replay of crashing car sales, nose-diving airlines, and fuel-starved farmers. Food prices—which these days move almost in lockstep with oil prices—are already at frightening levels, leading Lester Brown of Earth Policy Institute to warn of “The Great Food Crisis of 2011.”

Local organic food and farming are the gold standard. Organic farmers gladly adhere to a set of regulations, use non-toxic products, and accept the need to be scrutinized by an independent third party inspector. Why? Because, regulation of food safety is essential to guaranteeing consumers that the farmer has their health and well being at the center of his or her business plan. The organic regulatory process is neither easy nor happily anticipated by the farmer. But it is necessary! It is our covenant with our customers.

The missing link is oil, which hit a has new two-and-a-half year high and today topped $108 (£67) a barrel due to the instability in Libya – which has Africa’s biggest crude reserves. The price is moving closer to the record levels of more than $147 (£91), reached just before the financial crash in 2008.But in the longer term, the impact may also be evident on the dinner table because the zigs and zags of oil prices are increasingly being followed by grain.

Inviting people to tables, this simple act of hospitality, is important in our D.C. congregation, especially when we remember that the communion table is connected to the tables in our courtyard room, where we laugh and eat together. It is connected to the tables in our homes, where families of every size and configuration build their lives. It is connected to our tables in Miriam’s Kitchen, where we welcome our homeless guests in from the cold, so they can receive a hot, healthy meal. This simple table is central to our worship, and it has become vital for our work in our community.

Transition Colorado is the reorganized, combined version of nonprofits Transition Boulder and Boulder County Going Local. Got that? Well, all you have to know is that the new mission is a modern twist on “Think globally, act locally.” Transition Colorado puts that kind of thinking into action in a number of ways.

And if you believe there is space for peak oil and climate change in the account of events in Egypt, then that turmoil truly is emblematic of what to expect elsewhere. With the global population surging to seven billion, the UN warning of riots around the world if food prices don’t come down, oil prices rising again on the back of growing worldwide demand, and global warming making problems worse, the elements are in place for a humanitarian disaster. Despite the actions of all the deniers, I believe the next few years will see results of peak oil and climate change. The warnings are all in place.

“What has changed the placid Egyptian population into a boiling mass of revolt?” Goes the not-so-subtle sub-text of much corporate media coverage. First the supposed quietism of the Egyptian people is over-stated, there have been other strikes and protests in recent years. As recently as 2008 Egyptians rioted over bread prices. Second they are hardly a boiling mass, in fact the remarkable feature of the events in Tahir Square and across the country was the peacefulness, civic organisation and dignity of hundreds of thousands of people demanding change. But the short answer to the question ‘what made it all kick-off?’ is: bread, not twitter. It’s not an RSS feed they’re after: ‘Dignity Bread & Liberty’ is the slogan.

In the deep north of Southern Africa’s driest country, Namibia, about 10km from the Angolan border, live an elderly farming couple and their 10 adopted children, who watch the sky every day for rain. If the heavens do not open in another three weeks, they will not have enough food this year. Pearl millet, the staple grain in northern Namibia and known as mahangu in the local language, is a drought-tolerant grain grown in semi-arid and arid areas.