A decreasing supply of oil could have drastic impacts on agriculture and food production. Since the 1940s, agriculture has dramatically increased its productivity, due largely to the use of petroleum derived petro-chemical pesticides, fertilizers, and increased mechanisation. This process has been called the Green Revolution. The increase in food production has allowed world population to grow dramatically over the last 50 years. Pesticides rely upon oil as a critical ingredient, and fertilizers require both oil and natural gas (which, being a non-renewable resource, will also peak). Farm machinery also requires oil.

A decreasing supply of oil could cause major problems with the intensive agriculture system on which the world relies, and at the very least could cause the price of food to rise considerably, and possibly cause a major decline in food production, at which point societies all over the world could face starvation, creating a catastrophic situation all over the planet.

Some have argued that the present levels of food production are unlikely to be sustained without fossil fuel or alternative energy inputs. At the most extreme some have argued that fossil fuels have unsustainably increased the world's carrying capacity and that the world's population has "overshot" levels that can be sustained without fossil fuel based agriculture and that a large scale "die-off" of population is possible.

Some believe that a major transition to "organic agriculture" methods will be necessary, which would probably be more labor-intensive and require a population shift from urban to rural areas, reversing the trend towards urbanisation which has predominated in industrializing societies. Others believe that biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMO's) will provide the answer.

The movement of food products from producer to consumer is also highly dependent on oil-based transportation. Leading peak oil commentator James Howard Kunstler is quick to remind that the "3000 mile Caesar salad" has a limited future. Far-flung supply chains of all sorts are likely to become untenable in the age of uncertain and/or persistently rising prices for energy. Distribution to regions where food traditionally has not grown has itself been a miracle of the cheap and plentiful oil age.

In the DVD The End of Suburbia, it is said that ten calories worth of fossil fuel energy goes into producing one calorie of food energy for consumption. This does not include the packaging, distribution, or cooking of the food.

Many commentators such as James Kunstler have argued that a return to local food production and traditional farming methods are inevitable in the post-peak world. It has also been speculated that large urban areas which are incapable of supporting themselves with food grown locally, may cease to be viable and undergo a period of sharp contraction, thus reversing the trend towards urbanisation.

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