I certainly wouldn't say we're lacking for fruit choices in this house. The refrigerator is stocked with cherries, mandarin oranges, Ontario peaches, pears, blueberries, melons and bananas sit ripening for our delectation, and we enjoy them all. But for breakfast we like to have our choice of honeydew or cantaloupe melons and alternately, oranges. Oranges are still available, but they're either end-of-the-season Florida crops no longer as sweet, fresh and juicy as we expect, or those from South Africa, and the SA-derived oranges are miserable things, unpleasing to our palates.

Usually at this time of year we can look forward to California citrus and they're spectacular. Instead, we've seen citrus coming in from South Africa (groan), Argentina and Brazil and while the latter are fine, they're not quite the equal of Florida- or California-sourced oranges, grapefruit and clementines. Although when they make their rare appearance on our supermarket shelves, Israeli citrus certainly ranks among the absolute best.

The mystery of the lack of appearance of American-grown crops has now been revealed. We're always aware, in the back of our minds that sometimes adverse weather conditions in Florida can have a dreadfully deleterious effect on citrus crops, but they always seem to rebound. This time, it's the three-year-long drought in California that is affecting U.S.-derived produce. And California is now undergoing one of its worst years yet on record for drought.

That state, with its population equalling that of Canada's in its entirety, produces an immense amount of produce serving the entire American population. It's the world's largest exporting producer of almonds (82%). So there's little spillover to export fruit to Canada when it's struggling to meet the needs of its American home-market.

California's central valley produces roughly 25% of table foods for the U.S. on 1% of the country's farmland. Its produce represents most of the fruits, vegetables and nuts familiar to the kitchen table. So its inability, as a result of drought, to grow these foodcrops impacts on everyone in North America, including us. Having to pay higher prices at the supermarket for fruits of lesser quality and abundance. Climate change anyone?