Organic farms in the U.S. produce 20% fewer crops than conventional farms.

ok I'll give the best I can and try to keep my thoughts organized. I will edit with those thoughts in a few hours. Heres a nice example of farmers being effected by supply and demand: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-farmers-block-roads-in-protest-at-huge-drop-in-milk-and-pork-prices-following-russian-trade-a6875581.html Farmers will only continue to produce what they can sell. If the market drops out from them they will either stop producing that crop or do as the french and bitch to their government to buy their crops and bail them out.

Beyond the demand aspect, modern farming is heavily dependent on synthetic fertilizers. One oflargest of the manufacturers is Potash Corp. based in Canada. http://www.potashcorp.com/overview/introduction/our-nutrients/worlds-10-largest-fertilizer-companies But even this company produces only 3% of the nitrogen in the world. As important as Nitrogen is to farming is it has many other applications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen#Applications The drop off or increase in demand from any of those could impact farmers. So could mining costs of the the other raw materials of fertilizer and pesticide. Lets talk now about the other major cost in agriculture production: (not water because those prices are frequently set by the state and are more political than economical) labor. Much of agricultural labor is comes from Latin America, mostly mexico but also guatamala and others. The availablity of these workers in America is critical to harvesting crops around the country, especially in places of extreme heat (california central valley, Texas) and could be significantly effected by the labor markets in their home countries. These workers too are capatalists choosing where to work in their own self interested way. We are lucky enough that their countries are mismanaged enough to not lift their people up close to our standard of living, as we would lose some incredible workers. Same goes for the incredible machinery, it too is dependent on a dozen other industries labor markets. The price of oil can impact not only the cost of production of crops but also their distribution to consumers aswell. Higher prices mean lower demand, which means less production for farmers. Lastly, the idea that farming is the foundation of our modern economy or that it is independent of the other parts its simply false. It is a cog in the great mechanism of cooperative endeavor we call a free society. It is no different than mining or fishing or software development.
All the best.

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