The editorial Food Prices Enter The Danger Territory (January 27) was on the dot. This year the price of wheat will soar, hitting bakers of bread, cakes and cookies and the makers of pasta. In the US, the demand for crops for biofuels will be adding to the squeeze. World food supplies cannot keep up with urbanisation.

Agriculture depends mostly on rain. Some 30 per cent of all water used in agriculture comes from unsustainable sources. Grave water shortages are endangering farming. China is working on new water-saving and desalination technologies that hopefully can alleviate the crisis to come. To be expected within the next 10 years: spaghetti made in China! Imagine: Spaghetti Shanghai with spicy peanut-soy salsa and garnished with chopped scallions. Due to rain shortage, viticulture will suffer in countries like Italy, Spain and France. Stock up on the vino!

Triticale, a man-synthesised grain, a hybrid between wheat and rye, withstands the “rigours of climate” and poor soil conditions; maybe for Malta? Triticale is used for making bread and breakfast cereals as well as for feed grain and as an energy crop for bioethanol production.

In this century we will witness the birth of a great new synthetic protein created in a laboratory. In the meantime, dietary habits must shift to eating more potatoes, beans and lentils instead of cereal grains and animal proteins.