Food and oil prices: no accident their prices are both going up

Watching the cost of food go up, people usually make the obvious connection to the cost of fuel: when the latter is higher, it costs more to grow and transport food.

But people often don't know that the fertilizers that farmers and the agricultural industry use come from fossil fuels, especially natural gas. So when fuel prices are higher, fertilizer costs more... or may become unavailable. Read today's NY Times article on that problem.

I was introduced to this unexpected marriage of fuel and food when I read Richard Mannings "The Oil We Eat" a few years ago. It was the partial inspiration for my starting this blog; indeed, I referenced it in my first major post, "You are what you eat."