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The article talks about future trends in demand and consumption of food in the future. The graphs portrayed in the article, show the estimated increase in food demanded over the next 10-15 years. This has to do with the fact that the population is continuing to grow significantly in the near future. The problem with this is that while more food is needed, many countries have little room for improvements. This will make them rely heavily on imports in the future as they are not able to feed their growing population. The biggest problem is that if the food production is not increased significantly over the next years, there might be a global shortage of food. 

The example of food is very relevant when talking about this topic. As the worlds population, the food becomes more scarce, the demand rises. This causees the price of food to increase. Usually, this would cause many people to allocate their resources towards the food production. Currently however, despite rising prices of food, it is still more profitable to produce something else. This causes the food production to be lacking of food, which causes the price to rise even more.

This is an article on the prices of food and the way this affects the supply. Since the year 2012 has been a very warm year, there have been major draughts throughout the world. This article although focuses on the market in America. The draughts have left a major decrease in the production of products. The government's forecast states that the prices of beef would rise 4-5%. Professional analysts although also said that they do not believe that people therefore start buying less, on the other hand they said that it might affect the economic growth over the next years.

This article describes trends in supply of food. In summer 2012, being much hotter than usual and causing the biggest drought in half a century, are causing rises in prices. Groceries such as milk, beef, chicken and pork are expected to rise in price due to the record-breaking weather. Crops, such as corn, of which 88 percent were affected, are to go through major change. General increase of food goods will cause a shift of the curve to the left.

The Article talks about the fact that prices for agricultural products will rise in 2013 due to a heat wave in 2012. This means that the warmest year yet; 2012, will impact the supply of agricultural goods. As there will be less supply, the prices of agricultural goods will increase by up to 5% of goods such as beef and pork. In addition, as the US is a large exporter of agricultural goods, expert say that there has to be a solution to make sure that the global food prices will not spike. Due to the fact that there is a reduction of supply, the supply shift will shift left or upwards. Therefore, there will be less produced at each price and the new equilibrium price will be higher than before. In addition, there will also be fewer goods demanded due to the higher price.

Weather disruptions and rising energy expenses have increased grain costs at record high. Current supplies may be ample to start unrest caused by the high food prices. With droughts in the Soviet Union and weak monsoon rains in India, corn and soybean prices last month exceeded records. It is said that U.S consumers might need to pay 3 to 4 percent more on food next year because of the effect droughts have on store shelves. Places such as the middle east and North Sub-Saharan Africa are at a great risk since most of their products are imported. Because of this supply shock, there is a negative shift along the supply line as supplies are becoming more expensive. With the addition of governmental intervention such as taxes, firms will have a much lower profit this year on grain supplies.Also there will be less products for the firms to sell. Not only does this affect firms but as stated before, the world should be ready for a food price increase in the coming year.

Becuase of weather changes, there is a scarcity issue in the amount of food that his growing around the world. In economic terms, this means that the supply curve has shifted to the left created a new Equilibrium point. Because of this, the price has increased as the good is more scarce and of course, the supply has decreased. This means that the demand for the good has decreased and consumers have to ration their food even more. Because of this change in supply, there are less resources on the market so because of this scarcity issue, the prices have to go up so that producers get some sort of income. Unfortunately, this means that the consumers have little or no marginal benefit as the price increases. The demand for the good is still high as everyone wants to be able to buy good but unfortunately the price is too high and consumers are not able to buy the product. The marginal benefit decreases for both the consumer and the producer.

The price of maize has risen this year due to lower yields which will reduce this year's crops to less than what was originally expected.. The problem being created, is that this year's food price index of maize is above of what it has been at the same point during the years 2008 and 2011. Now it is feared that the same thing might happen to America's soya bean harvest, and with this it would have a huge impact on livestock farmers, which are already starting to have trouble with their harvests. The worry is now that, just like maize, the soya beans will become higher priced and with this less people would be able to afford it. But not only would it affect the soya beans, that would simply be the beginning; next would be the meat and then a wider food-price problem could be underway. Therefore, society is worried that this wave of pricing food higher than other years due to worst crops might not only affect the agricultural economy, but would expand into all of the food market, making less people be able to buy more food.

The United States has had its worst draught in half a century, the Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack predicts that the corn yield is the lowest since 1995 and that prices of corn and soyabeans will rise in price by 20-25 percent unless there will be more rain. The Agricultural Department estimates that the general food prices with rise between 3 and 4 percent. In the Midwest the average production was reduced by 60 percent according to the Johnson County Farm Bureau.

In this case the supply on the curve would decrease and therefore the prices would increase and scarcity would also increase. Consumers would ration their consumption of food because it has increased in price. The article particularly states that the price of corn and soyabeans will increase significantly, therefore consumers might buy less goods from the corn and soyabean market and might consume in meat products because of the rise in food prices. The producer would eventually start supplying more when the draught is over for next years harvest, so there would be a shift in resource allocation through an increase investment in agriculture in the years after the draught due to the rise in price.

The consumer incentives have changed and have increased the demand to now be much higher than previously. What this does to the producer incentives is that it makes then want to supply more because they will both make more money for each unit and be selling more at a faster rate. The new resource allocation that would take place from this event would be that previously allocated resources for other things are now being moved towards agriculture and food producing industries. For example if cows were previously being bred due to their high price, because the demand has increased the producers may now be willing to buy these cows for dairy products or milk.

This article describes the effect of price ceilings on goods in Asia. Most countries in Asia have set caps to petrol prices and only seldom raised these. Commentators argue that if price of petrol does not rise with the price of the crude oil in the world, consumers in Asia (where the price for petrol is low) will use up so much that the price of petrol will increase too much and harm the economy rather than help it. In China foods have been monitored as well. Price have a ceiling and if this is to be raise the company must seek approval of the government. This is only a temporary answer to the problem of keeping prices low.

The palm oil is used for many products and recently due to the pollution caused by the palm tree plantations, not as much oil can be produced without harming the environment. Many people who are environmentally aware will try to refrain from using products containing palm oil which are numerous. Products affected: processed food such as chips, instant noodles, soaps, shampoos and many cosmetic products. The awareness will cause the quantity of demand for these products to go down and as a result the prices will go down in order to keep the customers.

The demand of Fertilisers in India will drop by a fifth resulting in a demand of 45 million tonnes in 2012/ 2013 worth of fertilisers. One reason for this sharp decline in fertilisers is the cut in government subsidies to the industry which is creating a large fiscal distress for the state. Through the cuts in subsidies prices for fertilisers have increased and demand has been reduced. Another factor in the reduction of demand for fertilisers is the lack of rain meaning that investing in fertilisers is very risky for farmers in case it doesn't rain.

The demand on the curve would decrease, therefore the price would decrease and the scarcity would decrease because there would be more supply in comparison to the desires. Although there is a price decrease consumers would not raiton this good because it is mainly used by producers that need it, the farmers, who reduced their supply of food due to decreased subsidies and draught. Also, suppliers of the fertilisier would produce less because the profits gained from supplying fertilisers is reduced. Allocations to this resource would also decrease because suppliers produce less and might move their production to another good.