[JoshuaDavid]

> I know it is far more complicated than you appear to think it is

Agreed, definitely a thorny issue, and there probably isn't a simple fix. And even if the fix were as simple as "cut off subsidies for water-intensive crops", that would itself be hard in today's political climate.

> no matter how many tricks you come up with and how hard you push the pendulum, it will eventually come swinging back with a vengeance, especially the farther it is pushed out of its range.

Source? Human population is supposed to top out around 10-12B, last I checked, and then level out or even drop off a little bit. In a pinch, modern agriculture could probably feed that many, just with today's methods, but that would mean less in the way of meat and resource-intensive foods like almonds.

There are resource scarcities (e.g. oil, fresh water), but food is not really one of them.