Economics

The three farm products we chose for this assignment are Soybeans, Milk and Cattle. The prices received by farmers for each of these products have generally increased over the last three years.

We begin with the prices for cattle. The agriculture market in the area of Cattle has had a general increase over the last three years. This is due to the law of supply and its relationship to price, where prices increase when there is more supply due to suppliers wanting to sell larger quantities of a product at a higher price. This case does not show demand increasing more rapidly than supply, barring a few price dips in the charts, which show a temporary increase in demand. When a chart shows an upward slope that generally means the supply exceeds the demand. This is definitely shown in the agriculture market; at least in the area of cattle.

In addition to cattle, the price of soybeans has been increasing with some drastic jumps and dips over the past 3 years. From Jan of 2010 to Jan of 2013, the price rose 46%. This can be interpreted to say that the demand has surpassed the supply, as people are willing to pay much more money for the same agricultural product. One reason for this may be that more products are using soybeans than before. From personal experience, I have seen more foods containing soy on supermarket shelves in recent years than ever before. Some examples include vegetarian products that use soy protein, soy milk, tofu, etc. If the supply were to have surpassed the demand, a decrease in price would be an indicator.

Lastly, we have milk, which has increased throughout the years. When it came to the case of milk, demand has increased more rapidly than supply because the price of the product has gone up throughout the last three years. A perfect example of this would be organic milk. There is a shortage of organic milk across the country, and it has become so bad in areas like the Southeast that Publix stores from Florida to Tennessee have put up...