On other occasions, aggregate demand will push ahead of aggregate supply, causing farm prices to shoot skyward. Food prices can change dramatically as a result of the interaction between a severely inelastic global demand for food products and an unpredictable aggregate supply of those products within the global economy. Consumers will continue to experience severe changes in food prices as long as humankind influences the nature and slope of the aggregate demand curve for food products. Thus, food producers, both large and small, would be wise to recognize that theirs is a high-risk industry. Domestic policies can mitigate the impacts of these price risks but they cannot eliminate them.
Agriculture is a high-risk, unpredictable, and unstable industry.
There is, I believe, another option. A powerful trade association of family farmers could achieve some important objectives. Trade associations have worked well for other sectors of the agricultural industry. Sugar beet growers, cotton producers, and wheat farmers have all formed trade associations that clearly benefited members. A strong trade association of family farmers would give them real market power and real political power.