Drought and severe cold mean hardship for farmers and headaches for strapped consumers facing higher grocery prices.

But on Wall Street, the severe California water shortage and extreme winter weather conditions across the country are among reasons to warm to agriculture-related investments, which appear well-positioned to continue recovering after having spoiled in the commodity bust of recent years.

Large harvests and cash exiting from the once-popular “commodity trade” among fund managers led to a serious slump in crop prices last year. But so far in 2014, the PowerShares DB Agriculture exchange-traded fund (DBA) has climbed 15% in price. This fund invests directly in a broad spectrum of crop and livestock commodity futures.

This likely means an end of the brief reprieve from food inflation U.S. households were granted in 2013. The USDA forecasts retail food prices as a whole are likely to climb 2.5% to 3.5% in 2014, driven largely by drought-impacted supply strains on fruits, vegetables, dairy products and eggs.

The United Nations’ food organization likewise reported global food prices jumped in March to their highest level in a year, with political turmoil in Ukraine – a major grain producer – adding to weather-related difficulties.