Strategies like desalination (see San Diego's new huge desalination project), hydroponics/aquaponics and (ultra)local production can make these problems more manageable.<p>Instead of giant agricultural fields that are open to evaporation, hydroponic or aquaponics inside of greenhouses could vastly reduce water usage.<p>Instead of huge farms or corporations producing food tens or hundreds of miles away from where it is eaten, community/neighborhood or even household food production could be an alternative. This would be more efficient and save on energy and other costs needed for transporting and retailing food.<p>These things will probably become more economically viable and popular as solar becomes a consumer-level reality. As in, people are buying solar kits at Walmart or Home Depot regularly. The prices are almost already there.<p>Pretty sure that a lot of this is related to network effects and trends. The neighborhood urban hydroponic farming thing becomes more economically viable as it becomes more popular, simply because more people are cooperating (via the market) in order to make that more convenient.<p>Of course, there is a limit to how much food we can produce locally. Right now, even if we converted every Target into an urban farm, and every home and apartment used advanced technology to pull in solar energy efficiently and dedicated a full 1/3 of its space to hydroponic or aquaponic produce, we might only be able to supply a fraction of our food needs that way. What fraction that would be, 10%, 20% or 50%, not sure.<p>But I feel like that more local production is going to be more efficient and robust in the end, and more and more popular as we start to distribute production technologies more evenly.