An impending global food crisis is threatening to destabilize national economies and create a "politics of food scarcity" in 2005, as grain stocks dwindle to their lowest level in 30 years due to neglected environmental factors that are crippling harvests, Earth Policy Institute President Lester Brown has said. The situation in 2004 is beginning to look a lot like 1974, but for different reasons, Brown said. Spreading deserts, falling water tables and crop-wilting temperatures are shrinking harvests in key producing countries, he said.