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This article is acquainting us with China's plan to increase its supply of meat. Today, consumers in China are eating ten percent more meat than they did five years ago, so demand is increasing. However, the supply is lagging behind. Thus, Chinese officials have decided to buy millions of U.S. livestock and import it into China. This is a good example of how government intervention affects supply. By importing the U.S. livestock the cost of producing meat in China will be much less, whereas the quality will be much higher. However, critics from the U.S. are skeptic of this ordeal, as the cost of meat production is rising in the U.S. So the livestock exports to China would be increasing supply in China but they might decrease supply in the U.S. and lead to a future loss of a key U.S. export. 

Evidently, the reason for China's attempt to increase its supply of meat, is that there is an increase in the demand of meat. This means that meat has become scarcer. From a consumer perspective, the incentive now is to ration the amount of meat that is being consumed. Another consumer incentive might be to switch the consumption of meat with the consumption of a substitute good such as fish. From a producer perspective, an incentive is to produce more because the price is higher now. Therefore a producer is able to make a greater profit from the production of meat. There will also be a greater allocation of resources into the production of meat, as it is a more lucrative business.

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.