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“In recent months, rising oil prices have focused the world’s attention on the depletion of oil reserves. But the depletion of underground water resources from overpumping is a far more serious issue,” says Lester R. Brown in his new book, Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures.

“Excessive pumping for irrigation to satisfy food needs today almost guarantees a decline in food production tomorrow when aquifers are depleted,” says Brown, President and Founder of the Earth Policy Institute. “There are substitutes for oil, but there are no substitutes for water.”

While water tables are falling, rising temperatures are taking the edge off of world grain harvests, making it far more difficult for the world’s farmers to adequately feed the 76 million people added to our ranks each year.

“The world has been slow to respond to these new threats to food security,” says Brown. In four of the last five years the world grain harvest has fallen short of consumption. As a result, world grain stocks are now at their lowest level in 30 years. While wheat and corn prices are depressed right now, world grain production and use are precariously balanced. Another large world grain shortfall in 2005 could drop stocks to the lowest level on record and send world food prices into uncharted territory. Among the three grains that dominate the world food supply—wheat, rice, and corn—the supply of rice is likely to tighten first simply because it is the most water-dependent of the three grains.

The keys to securing future world food supplies are raising water productivity, cutting carbon emissions, and stabilizing population. If countries do not act quickly to raise water productivity, falling water tables could soon translate into rising food prices