As you’ve probably noticed, the drought that hit the US starting last summer has not caused society to collapse, nor are we experiencing a drought-induced famine like the one that took place three years ago in the Horn of Africa in which almost 1 billion people went hungry. So why should you care if the nation’s staple crops of wheat, corn and soybean suffered sizeable declines? To answer this question, let’s first take a look at how dependent we are on these crops—they are, after all, called staples for a reason.