Will the US face a food shortage?

Is it possible for the US to face a food shortage crisis? It is hard not to project this doom and gloom scenario onto our own lives, having witnessed this recently during the Arab Spring. Friedman and Mandelbaum discuss the inner loop that occurs when food prices become too high: “In December 2010, the FAO Food Price Index hit its highest level...those rising food prices were one factor, perhaps the last straw, that sparked the political uprising in Tunisia, which quickly spread to Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and aross the Arab world.” These political uprisings resulted in surging fuel prices, that lead to further increases in food prices. Friedman and Mandelbaum write, "The higher the food prices rise, the more political uprisings there will be. The more uprisings, the higher the fuel prices will rise."

Food prices have been a burden on working class Americans throughout the recession. I can't buy 14 oz of canned tomatoes for less than a dollar anymore... unless it's expired or dented--hello botulism. I don't believe the prices will decrease, because "This inner loop is being reinforced by another loop of steadily rising world population, plus steadily rising standards of living, plus steady rising climate change." I know that the scarcity of food and water in the US is hard to imagine—look at our nation's obesity and diabetes rates! But recent stories coming out of the American heartlands leads me to wonder if we are about to join the political uprisings we witnessed this year with the Arab Spring as a result of a shortage of affordable food.

Consider the following from the NY Times...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/business/food-prices-to-rise-in-wake-of-severe-drought.html

• The government said it expected the record-breaking weather to drive up the price for groceries next year, including milk, beef, chicken and pork. The drought is now affecting 88 percent of the corn crop, a staple of processed foods and animal feed as well as the nation’s leading farm export.
  
• Cattle farmers in several states have already started selling off or culling cattle because the drought has ruined grass for grazing and the price for corn for feed has skyrocketed.
  
• Countries that import [from the US] substantial amounts of animal feed made from corn and soybeans will feel the impact the most.

In addition to this, the might Mississippi is suffering as well:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-20/news/sns-rt-us-usa-drought-bargesbre87j0wo-20120820_1_vessels-river-traffic-freight-rates

• The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday that 97 vessels were stranded by low water on the Mississippi River near Greenville, Mississippi... The worst U.S. drought in 56 years has left the river there at its lowest point since 1988, a year when a similarly dire drought also stalled commercial traffic on the major shipping waterway.
  
• The upcoming Midwest corn and soybean harvest could propel freight costs higher if river traffic remains severely restricted.

So much of our economic stability relies on an unpredictable and unstable factor: climate. This is just another reason to take climate change seriously, before we find ourselves caught up in the inner loop.